Dwayne rock Johnson kicked off Super Bowl LVI. The surprise appearance of the former wrestler and movie star anticipated an afternoon worthy of Hollywood. He was not wrong. The Los Angeles Rams have won the American football final at home against the Cincinnati Bengals (23-20) in an afternoon full of drama, comebacks, injuries, overflowing passions and unexpected figures. It’s the second straight year a team has won the NFL’s coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy at home. The Rams hadn’t won a title since 2000, but then they were playing in Missouri. After returning from the east in 2016, this Sunday the team has managed to vindicate itself after its loss in 2019 against Tom Brady and his Patriots. So Los Angeles, the land of deep-rooted legends like the Dodgers and Lakers, finally knows what it’s like to have a winning NFL team. The night achieves another milestone. Rap gets some of the glory with an electrifying show from giants of the genre that has shown how the NFL, a white, transformation-averse league, is finally ready to change.
2022 will forever be remembered as the year hip hop definitively took over America’s most-watched television event. Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar took the stage for 12 minutes to turn the SoFi Stadium court, and in front of 70,000 spectators, into a video clip with lowriders and stars of the late 90s, when TheChronic, All Eyez on Me Y The Doggfather they were albums of a fringe movement and today they are classics. The stage was a tribute to Compton, the city that promoted Dre (André Romelle Young), 56 years old, from the days of NWA. On the court winks were made to a hamburger restaurant and a donut shop. The dances were inspired by choreography from the crips, the local gang, and Lamar used an aerial map of his hometown, located southeast of Los Angeles.
It was a stellar lineup — with three of the artists born in the city — that could even afford surprises. Anderson .Paak came out playing drums and 50 Cent, the New York rapper also appeared to sing In the Club an early 2000s club hit, produced by Dre. It was the ace up his sleeve for Jay Z, the rap star turned entrepreneur who has once again turned halftime shows into trending topics international, as he did with J. Lo and Shakira two years ago, thanks to his company Roc Nation. The concert was able to meet the great expectations it had aroused, something that The Weekend did not meet in Tampa Bay last year. From Inglewood, the neighborhood where the SoFi is located, came a celebration of the powerful black influence that has launched cultural waves throughout the United States from the West Coast for decades.
In 2004, the nipple of Janet Jackson, who sang with Justin Timberlake, caused a national scandal. Tonight it was a knee. Detroit idol Eminem ended up kneeling on stage after singing Lose Yourself, the theme that won him an Oscar for the film 8 Mile. It was a reference to the gesture with which Colin Kaepernik, quarterback of San Francisco, protested against racism in 2016 during the national anthem. It became a thorny issue for the league during Donald Trump’s presidency. An NFL spokesman said tonight that the league has learned to live with it and that they had seen Eminem do it during rehearsals. Two Rams defensive players, Terrell Burgess and Nick Scott, also took a knee during the anthem, which was sung by country’s first great black star, Mickey Guyton. lamar sang alrightwhich is considered a hymn to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Today’s gesture, although it came from the most important white rapper, was loaded with symbolism. Days before the long-awaited grand finale, Brian Flores, the general coach of the Miami Dolphins, who was fired despite having a winning record, decided to sue the league for discriminatory practices. It was a scandal in a league packed with African-American players but with only two black coaches on 32 teams.
The defensive zone of the Rams has been the great star of the night. His players were key and were up to the task to compensate for the plot twists not contemplated in the grand final. Mainly, the injury of Odell Beckham Jr. the star receiver of the local team. Beckham, a celebrity in the league, made the first touchdown of the game. Everything was looking for this to finally be his big night, but a knee injury in the second quarter prevented him from becoming the player in the final. His absence was a blow to the team during the first half and much of the second, something that was well used by Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ offense.
Burrow, a 25-year-old who has reached the Super Bowl in his second season as a professional, was able to show why he is one of the future promises of the league. He outshone Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, who gave up two interceptions in the finals (in the regular season he threw for 41 touchdowns and 17 interceptions), helping his team squander an early 13-3 lead. The Bengals scored 17 straight points. The first touch down of the Ohio team was thrown not by Burrow, but by Joe Mixon, a catcher, after a successful trick play. This has made him the third running back to throw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl in 56-year history.
Von Miller and Aaron Donald, two great defenders of the Rams, led the return of the locals. The team sacked Burrow seven times, losing the Bengals 43 yards. In one of those encounters, Burrow limped off the field. Miller and Donald each caught the young quarterback separately. “I had dreamed this. It’s surreal, just unbelievable,” a tearful Donald told US television after the match. Before the start, Donald dropped that if they won the trophy this could be his last game before retirement. This wall slowed the advance and paved the way for the return of one of the great connections of the Angelenos offense: Stafford and receiver Cooper Kupp, who scored twice.
With less than two minutes to play, the experience of Stafford, who came to Los Angeles from Detroit this year in a quarterback castling, was able to bring coolness to a complex end zone offense that tested the Los Angeles coach’s strategy. Rams, Sean McVay. Stafford finally found Kupp, who has given the long-awaited victory to the local team in the first final to be played in the Californian city in almost 30 years. Kupp, 28, has been named the game’s most valuable player. He is the eighth wide receiver to receive the distinction in history and the first since 2019, when Julian Edelman earned it in New England’s win over the Rams. The player crowns tonight a great season in which he led in receptions, with 143, and scoring receptions with 16. He also broke records in the games leading up to the final, with 33 receptions. “I don’t feel like I deserve this,” he said humbly. This must be normal in a league where Tom Brady no longer plays.
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