Rebellious Rams made the right decision to shun picks

Sunday brings us Super Bowl LVI and with it a line-up that no one expected as the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams.

It has been a funny NFL season, with no team showing themselves to be a dominant force. The expected contenders all turned out to have flaws and most of those weaknesses came home to roost in the playoffs.

Kansas City, the AFC representatives in the last two Super Bowls, didn't look themselves in the first half of the season, and gave the false impression that their suspect defence had improved in the middle of the year. The Chiefs emerged victorious from one of the best NFL games seen for years in the divisional round, beating Buffalo in overtime, only to absolutely choke away their shot at a third straight Super Bowl, collapsing in the second half against Cincinnati after leading 21-3 in the second quarter.

In the NFC, Green Bay and their famously unvaccinated quarterback Aaron Rodgers took the number one but crashed out in the divisional round thanks to a special teams meltdown against the 49ers.

What we're left with is two fourth seeds going at it in the Super Bowl, and that's never happened before. In fact, since seeding began properly with Super Bowl X in 1976, it's the first big game not to feature at least one first or second seed.

These fourth seeds got there using very different philosophies, though. The established thinking is that for long-term success, teams must build through the draft, and several choose to occasionally tear down their rosters, clear out expensive veterans and take a couple of years of pain on the field to be able to build a stronger squad. The Bengals didn't do anything quite so dramatic, but they did hit the jackpot with their high draft picks in the last two seasons.

Cincinnati played in Super Bowls in 1981 and 1988, but the last 30 years have largely been filled with misery, and their record in the previous five seasons was: 6-9-1, 7-9, 6-10, 2-14, 4-11-1. Even this year, they scraped into the playoffs with a 10-7 record and dreadful results such as losses to the hapless Bears and Jets plus a 41-16 home defeat by the Browns.

Those two and four-win seasons, though, gave them the chance to take quarterback Joe Burrow with the first pick in 2020 and wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase with the fifth pick in the 2021 draft. Without that elite pair, they would surely still be in the lower reaches of the AFC North with a losing record. The rest of the roster is largely unremarkable, and the offensive line remains outright dangerous to Burrow's health, allowing him to get sacked a painful nine times by the Titans in the playoffs.

M'learned colleague Kevin Pullein would no doubt approve of Cincinnati's decision to stick by under-fire head coach Zac Taylor after his 6-25-1 record in his first two seasons. There was no reason to think that ripping up the rebuilding project so soon would provide better results and the Bengals have been rewarded for trusting in the process they had started.

The Rams, however, arrived at the Super Bowl by almost the opposite path. In an outrageously contrarian strategic philosophy, the Rams have spent the last couple of years flaunting a blatant disregard of the NFL's religious belief that high draft picks are sacred.

Instead, they use their allocated picks as capital to acquire players who are already proven commodities. The Rams have paid what looked like high prices for cornerback Jalen Ramsey, quarterback Matt Stafford and linebacker Von Miller. What they achieved there was eliminating the element of risk that comes from signing young players who have never played in an NFL game.

Some pay off - Burrow, for example – but former first overall picks have totally washed out, including Ja'Marcus Russell, taken first by the Raiders in 2007, who started just 25 games and lasted only three years in the league.

Even Jared Goff, taken first by the Rams in 2016 and who got them to the Super Bowl in 2019, was considered not good enough by the team, whose decision to ship him out in the trade that brought in Stafford already looks justified.

Rams general manager Les Snead was famously given a mug bearing the slogan '**** them picks' by his children, and his maverick approach could become more popular in the NFL's copycat league if the Rams win on Sunday. It's also attractive for GMs, who know that the fastest way to the dole queue is to draft busts with their high picks - if you don't make any high picks, they can't fire you for it! Clever.

So it's Draft versus Trade in the Super Bowl, and the Rams look the right favourites. Stafford just needs to avoid reverting to his interception-prone Detroit self on the big stage and the Rams defensive line, led by the force of nature Aaron Donald, should make life miserable for the suspect Cincinnati linemen. It could even be a good old-fashioned Super Bowl blowout.

No winners in flawed title finale

Could I just use a final few words to retract what I wrote last time? In November, with four races left in the 2021 F1 season, I said that whoever emerged victorious in the title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen would be a worthy and deserved winner.

Little did I know that due to the FIA going rogue in the last race, putting a made-for-TV finish ahead of sporting integrity, we'd have a hugely unsatisfactory official championship result.

While Hamilton has shunned his right to use the world champion's number 1 on his car, preferring to continue to use his personal number 44, Verstappen will be swapping his 33 to run with 1 on the nose of his Red Bull this season. But it really should have an asterisk on it.

The FIA farce in Abu Dhabi has tarnished not only the governing body itself, but also ruined the legacy of both drivers. Hamilton doesn't get his eighth title that he earned on the track, and even if Verstappen gets to seven or eight himself, people will still say – through no fault of his own – that he didn't really win the first one.

Not got a bet365 account? Bet £10 & get £50 in free bets

Open account offer. Minimum deposit requirement. Free Bets are paid as bet credits and are available for use upon settlement of bets to value of qualifying deposit. Minimum odds, bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude bet credits stake. Time limits/T&Cs apply. 18+ begambleaware.org

CLAIM OFFER HERE

MORE FREE BETS

Today's top sports betting stories

Follow us on Twitter @racingpostsport