How LA Rams might have fared in the NFC Championship Game?

Kansas City Chiefs

This would have been the match up to see, and one that many in the NFL would have hoped for from top to bottom. The two teams last met in 2018, a game that the LA Rams won by the score of 55-51, a game that the NFL Network labeled an ‘instant classic‘. The Chiefs and the Rams possessed two of the most productive offenses in NFL history, and it was all on display in that shootout.

What a thrill it would be to pit those two offenses on opposite sides of the same football field. Of course, since that game, the Rams went on to compete and lose in Super Bowl LIII. The Chiefs went on to compete and win in Super Bowl LIV.  The NFC representative from SB LIII to face last year’s Super Bowl winner would have been such an easy game to market worldwide. And the history of their last matchup would have fueled the fires.

Would the Rams have a chance against the Chiefs? That’s a tough one. The Chiefs appeared to become better, while the Rams had a hard fall in 2019, and rebounded in 2020.  The Super Bowl not only tests a team’s talent and players but the ability to focus and drowned out distractions. Even hoping for an alternative, the Rams clearly were not as successful at doing so in 2020.

But win or lose, the Rams would have been a great opponent to face the Chiefs. It would have been an elite defense against an elite offense. And yes, by game time, most of the injured Rams would have been healed enough to play. In fact, even Taylor Rapp might have been back. And there is no telling whether or not the LA Chargers would have enough patience to wait for DC Brandon Staley to become their head coach.

Yes, this is all fiction. It’s as true as anything that begins with ‘once upon a time…’ and probably less entertaining. So why did I put this out there? The Rams were just three victories shy of winning a Super Bowl.  Had the team found a way to break the two-win-one-loss pattern earlier in the season, the outcome may have been much different. In the end, the LA Rams were oh so close. But even losing in the Super Bowl results in ending up in the same place. Starting over with the same attitude: ‘We’ll get ’em next year!’