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Rams finish off their comeback to L.A., win Super Bowl LVI

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Excess was the order of the day.

From the outrageous prices simply to park, let alone to get in SoFi Stadium, to the non-stop stream of celebrities who suddenly were diehard fans and the dream Los Angeles halftime show, there was little that was subtle about Super Bowl LVI.

Then Rams owner Stan Kroenke accepted the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the second in the franchise’s history but the first representing Los Angeles, and delivered perhaps the ultimate in understatement.

“As far as building this stadium, I think it turned out all right,” Kroenke said.

Kroenke’s move to bring the Rams back to Los Angeles in 2016 after more than two decades in St. Louis capped its comeback Sunday with a 23-20 Rams triumph over the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.

His $5.5 billion palace – next to where the Lakers once collected championships at the Forum – was packed with 70,048 who witnessed the Rams become only the second NFL team to win a Super Bowl at home.

Nothing like this seemed possible when then-Rams owner Georgia Frontiere took the team from Anaheim following the 1994 season or even when they returned and sputtered to a 4-12 record in a forgettable 2016 season at the Coliseum.

In between, there were years of disappointment for local fans who simply wanted their team, and some couldn’t even bring themselves to celebrate the franchise’s first championship in Super Bowl XXXIV because it was for St. Louis. After that one, Frontiere was anything but subtle when she said the victory proved the Rams did the right thing by moving.

This one, however, was all about the Los Angeles area.

The Rams gave the region another major championship following the Dodgers’ and Lakers’ triumphs in 2020, but this one L.A. fans expect to be able to celebrate in grand style.

“There’s something really powerful about being a part of something bigger than yourself,” said Rams coach Sean McVay, who reached his second Super Bowl in five seasons and won his first at only 36 years old.

Rams superstar defensive lineman Aaron Donald started with the team in St. Louis and, appropriately, finished off Sunday’s victory when he pressured Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow into an incomplete pass on Cincinnati’s final play.

“I’ve been here eight years,” Donald said. “A lot of ups and downs.”

The Rams experienced one of those downs in Super Bowl LIII, when they came up short against the New England Patriots and lost, 13-3. They missed the playoffs the next season and were eliminated in the second round of the postseason last season.

As much as they went all-in to win this season by loading up with veteran talent, it was anything but a given that they would win the championship.

“We fought through adversity when I first got here,” said Rams linebacker Von Miller, who came to the Rams on Nov. 1 in a trade from the Denver Broncos. “We lost three in a row.

“We’ve got a team full of fighters.”

Another newcomer this season was quarterback Matthew Stafford, who was acquired in a blockbuster trade in the offseason with the Detroit Lions for former Rams No. 1 pick Jared Goff – the player who was supposed to be their future when they returned to L.A. – and draft picks.

Stafford battled through Sunday’s game and led the Rams’ comeback in the final minutes, capped by a 1-yard touchdown pass to Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp with 1:25 to play.

“This is a long time coming for a lot of guys,” said Stafford, who never won a playoff game with the Lions but led the Rams to four postseason victories in the past five weeks.

Things definitely improved for Stafford with his move to Los Angeles, which embraced its moment Sunday in every way possible.

The unseasonably hot February Sunday settled to a nice 82 degrees at kickoff.

Dr. Dre gathered some of his closest friends, including Long Beach native Snoop Dogg, for a halftime show that immediately moved into the discussion – after Prince’s in 2007, of course – of the all-time best.

Celebrities were spotted all over SoFi Stadium, as expected, but few from movies or music garnered the applause saved for some of Los Angeles’ greatest athletes. Jennifer Lopez was greeted warmly, for instance. But it was nothing compared to what Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw and Lakers legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal heard.

Scalpers didn’t bother trying to sell tickets outside SoFi Stadium; those were going for thousands of dollars on the secondary market. They were busy hawking coveted parking spots for hundreds of dollars, some at local businesses and others on neighborhood lawns.

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There were opportunists pushing liquid refreshments at high prices for the crowds that made their way in the heat toward SoFi’s entrances, and they were matched in their numbers by those offering street-corner salvation.

Inside the stadium, the crowd was pretty evenly split between Rams fans who had endured their years of pain and Bengals fans who had experienced worse in support of a franchise that was the laughingstock of the NFL for a long time.

They all witnessed a stellar game that could’ve gone either way. The Rams and Bengals were evenly matched and delivered at a high level.

The Rams, however, simply had enough to pull out the most important victory in the L.A. version of the franchise’s history and complete a comeback from much more than a fourth-quarter deficit.

“To be able to do it in the house that Mr. Kroenke built was really special,” McVay said.

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