Super Bowl 56

In Super Bowl 56 , the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20. It was California's 55th major sports championship . After Super Bowl 56, here was a breakdown of the 55 championships:

22 came from the Bay Area
32 came from the Los Angeles area
1 came from San Diego

It was highly underreported that the 55 championships matched the number of Congressmen that California has had for the last twenty years (53 House of Representatives, 2 Senators). Of course, this may have been a bigger story if the Rams had played in the previous year's Super Bowl (Super Bowl 55) instead! Later that calendar year, the Golden State Warriors won the NBA Finals for California's 56th championship and Los Angeles FC won the MLS Cup for California's 57th championship.

For the third time in their last four Super Bowls, the Rams scored a game-winning or game-tying touchdown between eighty seconds and two minutes left:

In Super Bowl 34, the Rams scored a touchdown with 1 minute and 54 seconds left to take a 23-16 lead over the Tennessee Titans. Of course, the final play of the game was more memorable.

In Super Bowl 36, the Rams scored a touchdown with 1 minute and 30 seconds left to tie the New England Patriots 17-17. Again, the final play was more memorable .

In Super Bowl 56, MVP Cooper Kupp scored the game-winning touchdown with 1 minute and 25 seconds left. This time, the final play (a kneel down) was not that memorable.

There have been only four game-winning or game-tying touchdowns in Super Bowl history between eighty seconds and two minutes left (Terrell Davis' game-winning Super Bowl 32 touchdown with one minute and 45 seconds left was the other ) and the Rams have scored three of them!

Meanwhile, it was the Bengals' third Super Bowl loss (in three tries). Their first two losses were to the San Francisco 49ers. While the Bengals were winless in their first three Super Bowl (0-3), they were undefeated in their first three AFC Championship Games (3-0). The first three times that the Bengals got past the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs, the same thing happened: they won the AFC Championship Game and lost in the Super Bowl to a California team by less than six points! Those three losses account for 1/19 of California's sports championships.

Super Bowl 56 was the Bengals' second consecutive Super Bowl in which they have allowed a game-winning touchdown in the final ninety seconds (the other was this John Taylor touchdown with 34 seconds left in Super Bowl 23). It was also their second Super Bowl run in a row that featured at least one memorable rookie. The first of the two Super Bowl teams included rookie running back Ickey Woods (15 rushing touchdowns, 5.3 yards/carry, Ickey Shuffle ). In their latest Super Bowl run, NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase (81 receptions, 1,455 receiving yards, and 13 touchdowns) and rookie kicker Evan McPherson (record-tying 14 postseason field goals including two walk-off game-winners) each played a big role in the Bengals' success.

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