A week before the Rams played in the Super Bowl in 2019, they attended a pep rally outside a construction site in Inglewood, where thousands of fans loudly wished them good luck. Players and coaches then rode buses to LAX. And jetted off to Atlanta, the site of the game.

It’s different this time. Not only is the then-under-construction stadium built and in business. SoFi Stadium is the site of the Feb. 13 Super Bowl.

Only the Cincinnati Bengals will see LAX this time.

“Not having to travel, that’s obviously going to be great,” wide receiver Cooper Kupp said Monday, the day after the Rams won the NFC title with a 20-17, come-from-behind victory over the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi.

The possibility of playing in Super Bowl LVI on their home turf has been on the Rams’ minds all season, or really since SoFi was officially named host in 2017.

Now that it’s reality, they’re trying to make sure to maximize the home-field advantage and minimize potential pitfalls.

The Rams will have their regular locker room. But this isn’t actually a Rams home game. The Bengals are the designated home team because it’s the AFC’s turn in the rotation.

Whether the crowd is pro-Rams remains to be seen, though there should be fewer fans in Bengals orange and black than there were fans in 49ers red at the NFC title game.

The crowd, in a stadium with a capacity of more than 70,000, certainly will be bigger than it was at Raymond James Stadium a year ago when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers became the first team to play a Super Bowl in its home stadium. The crowd size was limited by COVID-19 restrictions. The Bucs beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9.

“It was 35,000 or 25,000, whatever it was, (and) paper cutouts,” Bucs coach Bruce Arians told L.A. writers recently, adding that the Rams’ crowd-noise advantage “could be huge – I mean, if the fan base can afford the tickets.”

For various reasons, home-field advantage in the NFL generally isn’t what it was in the years when host teams won 60% of games. The Washington Post wrote that home teams won 51.1% of games in the 2021 regular season. That’s after road teams won 50.2% in 2020, with stadiums empty or partly full.

The Rams see their biggest home advantage coming during the two weeks before the game, when they’ll be able to live and practice mostly at their facility in Thousand Oaks.

Coach Sean McVay said not having to travel removes the pressure to complete the game plan a week before the game, as he did before the Rams’ 13-3 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

McVay said Monday he was “fine-tuning” the team’s practice schedule. Players are expected to have days off Tuesday and Sunday.

Rams left tackle Andrew Whitworth played in the Super Bowl in Atlanta and likes the idea of a Super Bowl at home better.

“Sometimes just staying in a hotel for a week like that can get a little old and it can get a little frustrating, when you’re coming and going as much as you have to to go practice (and) work out,” Whitworth said.

“Being at home, it’s an advantage if you do it the right way. You just try to stay in your normal rhythm and stay in the way that you prepare normally for games.”

But Whitworth could imagine a downside.

“You can get distracted,” he said. “You do probably have easier access to where things are and how to get there. You’re going to understand the lay of the land a little more, and maybe try to do more than you would normally do if you were stuck in a hotel.”

McVay said players will be urged to enjoy the experience of playing in the Super Bowl, a first for most of the roster.

“But when you have all the people coming in from out of town, (make) sure you get all those things taken care of, (so) they’re not a distraction at the house,” McVay said.

“It’s a blessing being able to be at home,” he said, but don’t let would-be distractions “take away from the focus of finishing the task at hand, which is trying to get one more win.”

HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Tight end Tyler Higbee is the only Rams player whose status for the Super Bowl is “in doubt” because of an injury sustained in the victory over the 49ers, McVay said.

Higbee didn’t return to the game after spraining an MCL in the first half, and Kendall Blanton replaced him and caught a career-high five passes for 57 yards.

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“He’s such a tough guy,” McVay said of Higbee. “We’re going to do everything in our power to get this guy back and ready to go.”

McVay said safety Taylor Rapp, who has missed three games with a concussion, is “turning the corner in a positive way.”

The coach said it’s possible that running back Darrell Henderson, nose tackle Sebastian Joseph-Day and cornerback Robert Rochell could come off injured reserve before the Super Bowl.

NOTES

The Rams had risen to 4½-point favorites over the Bengals by Monday evening, after opening at 3½, according to Vegas Insider. If that holds, the Rams would be the heaviest Super Bowl favorites since the Patriots were 4½-point choices over the Philadelphia Eagles in 2018 (and the Eagles won). … Safety Eric Weddle led the Rams in tackles with nine against the 49ers in his third game back from a two-year retirement. McVay said one of the game’s biggest plays was Weddle’s tackle of Elijah Mitchell for a 1-yard loss on a second-and-1 in the fourth quarter, leading to the Rams getting the ball back for their game-tying field goal. “It’s remarkable, but if anyone that was going to be able to do it, it would be him,” McVay said. … One bad stat for the Rams: They averaged 2.4 yards per rush against San Francisco, with Cam Akers leading with 48 yards on 13 carries, and are averaging just 2.9 over their past five games.