Los Angeles was home to a Super Bowl winner to complete the 1983 season as the Los Angeles Raiders beat the Washington Redskins, 38-16, in Super Bowl XVIII. The Rams have also won a Super Bowl, they did that while playing out of St. Louis and winning Super Bowl XXXIV to complete the 1999 season.
So Los Angeles and the Rams have won two Super Bowls, but the Los Angeles Rams have not won any.
They look to change that this month when they meet the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.
The Bengals are also looking for their first Super Bowl win, having lost their prior two appearances to the San Francisco 49ers to complete the 1981 and 1988 seasons. The 1981 loss to the 49ers marked San Francisco’s first of five franchise Super Bowl titles. The 1988 season Super Bowl was best remembered by the touchdown drive engineered by Joe Montana that provided a 20-16 victory margin for the heavily favored 49ers.
Back to Los Angeles. The city hosted the first Super Bowl, a game played before the series had even adopted the title “Super Bowl.” In 1967, it was simply known as the AFL/NFL World Championship Game.
The first Super Bowl wasn’t sold out, but a number of highly recognizable celebrities were on the sidelines and scattered throughout the stadium. The coverage in Los Angeles focused on the action off the field more than the play-by-play activities on the field. Interviews with Kirk Douglas and Bert Lancaster were of a lot more interest to the Southern California crowd than Max Magee catching a pass.
The established National Football League clobbered the upstart American Football League in the first two championship games, Green Bay winning both times by scores of 35-10 and 33-14 over the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders respectively. The coach of those dominant Green Bay teams was Vince Lombardi, a name forever etched in football lore as the moniker of their Super Bowl Trophy.
Los Angeles hosted the first Super Bowl and again in 1973, that year, in Super Bowl VII, the Miami Dolphins completed their perfect 1972 campaign with a win over George Allen and his ‘Over the Hill’ Washington Redskins. On February 13, Los Angeles will host their third Super Bowl and first since that epic battle between Washington and Miami.
The game in Los Angeles has created an intersection of city and team. SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Rams, was selected four years ago to host this Super Bowl. No one then knew who would be in the Super Bowl in 2022, and Los Angeles was selected because of their spectacular new facility that last year had to endure an inaugural season without the benefit of fans in the stands due to the pandemic restrictions.
How could this get any better for the people of Los Angeles? They are in hopes of their first Super Bowl win. It is their third attempt, having lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers to complete the 1979 season and downed three years ago by Tom Brady and his New England Patriots in the lowest scoring Super Bowl in history, 13-3.
During the first 54 years of Super Bowl play no team got to vie for the title on their home field. Last year, that streak was broken when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers met the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium. Now, for a second straight season, a team gets a shot at the league’s top prize while playing on their home field.
The Rams are very happy to have a home field advantage like the Buccaneers did last year.
And how did that work out for the Buccaneers last year?
Very well, they were underdogs in the game and won convincingly, 31-9.
The Rams are looking for a similar result when they entertain the Bengals at SoFi Stadium a couple Sundays from now.