How the Super Bowl LVI Teams Actually Built Their Rosters
The Bengals didn't really tank and the Rams went "all in" before 2021.
The Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals meet up in Super Bowl LVI and some people gesture to both teams about how they have shown the way to build a Super Bowl contender.
But as Mike Tanier at Football Outsiders points out, it's not really possible to copy the strategies both teams employed -- not without risk or hoping certain factors fall into place.
If you want to understand how each team got to this point, you have to do more than buy into the narratives like "tanking" and "going all in for a QB." You have to take a deeper look at what each team has done in recent years, particularly the years with their current head coaches.
Tanier mentioned than some people claimed the Bengals "tanked" to get where they are at now. And with the Rams, we know the story about how they haven't had a first-round draft pick since 2017.
But what's the real story behind these teams and how they got to this point? Let's look at both of them.
The Bengals Path
After the 2018 season, the Bengals fired longtime head coach Marvin Lewis and hired Zac Taylor to replace him. In 2019, the Bengals went 2-14 and got the No. 1 overall pick. Tanking, right?
Wrong. The Bengals didn't send out a lineup each week that featured career backups and inexperienced players. They were simply a bad team going into year one of a rebuild.
Teams that are tanking don't extend players like Tyler Boyd, because tanking teams trade players like Boyd away to get more draft picks. Tanking teams also don't keep key veterans such as Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins around that year -- true, Dunlap was eventually traded, but not until 2020 when the Bengals already had drafted Burrow.
The Bengals, in reality, were a team that likely knew it needed an overhaul but approached the season in a manner that suggests the team wanted to win games. Andy Dalton started the season because he was at least a capable player and the Bengals showed a willingness to keep the veterans they had.
In 2020, the Bengals then did something unusual for them: They got aggressive in free agency. This tendency carried over to 2021. Sometimes it worked out well (DJ Reader, Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie) and sometimes it backfired (franchising AJ Green, signing Trae Waynes).
The Bengals did get the quarterback they could build around, but that by itself didn't turn around the team's fortunes. They also acquired a top wide receiver who played with Burrow in college, when plenty of people (including me) advocated for an offensive tackle, given how many sacks Burrow took.
Along the way, fortune favored the Bengals in terms how the division took shape in 2021. Despite the Bengals losing to the lowly Jets (whose starter was journeyman Mike White), they had far less bad happen to them than the Ravens (injuries caught up with them), Steelers (their franchise QB had nothing left, despite the team backing its way into the playoffs) and Browns (injuries and inconsistent play).
What the Bengals do deserve credit for is not acting like there was nothing they could do because the Ravens and Steelers had been dominating the division (as Tanier notes in his piece). They made some moves that people called smart when they happened, but plenty of moves that people questioned when they happened.
The Bengals are definitely set at some positions, but they aren't yet a finished product. They do enter 2022 in great position, though, because they are projected to have $44.7M in cap space once 51 players are under contract and have seven draft picks.
What they do in 2022 will tell the tale about whether the Bengals join the Chiefs and Bills as a dominant AFC power or whether they settle into the team that wins a division title one year, then has to push for a wild card spot the next.
The Rams Path
There are those who look at the picks the Rams shipped off to acquire quarterback Matthew Stafford and pass rusher Von Miller and think this is how you buy your way into the Super Bowl. But there's more to the Rams' path to the big game than that.
Les Snead has been with the Rams since 2012 and reportedly gained final say in personnel decisions in 2014. That year, he landed the man many believe to be the best defensive player in the NFL, Aaron Donald, in the second round.
The following year, the Rams drafted Todd Gurley and Rob Havenstein, then made their first "all in" move in 2016 when they traded away multiple picks for the No. 1 overall pick. Their selection was quarterback Jared Goff.
That same year, they added tight end Tyler Higbee in the fourth round. After failing to make the playoffs, the Rams fired head coach Jeff Fisher. Sean McVay was named to replace him.
The Rams then made the playoffs in 2017. That same year, they added a wide receiver in the third round you've probably heard about: Cooper Kupp, who was named the 2021 NFL Offensive Player of the Year.
In the 2018 season, the Rams reached the NFC title game, then advanced to the Super Bowl -- though that NFC title win was not without controversy. Goff looked much better under McVay and, thus, the Rams extended him.
Then things started to unravel in 2019. Gurley got injured and never really recovered. Goff regressed and the Rams, who had just made another "all in" move in by trading multiple first round picks for Jalen Ramsey, now were left with questions after missing the playoffs.
However, the Rams had been stockpiling picks in later rounds of the drafts thanks to trading down the board (case in point, they traded out of the first round in 2019). They were able to find enough players to fill out the roster.
Add in a few free agent signings, such as Robert Woods and Andrew Whitworth, and the Rams were quietly building a team around Goff, even if Goff didn't prove to be the guy.
The Rams were fortunate that the Lions decided to trade Stafford -- and I previously wrote that the Rams needed to get a Super Bowl out of the trade. The trade for Miller happened such that the Broncos picked up the bulk of his salary, which necessitated the Rams sending those Day Two picks.
However, what really made the Stafford trade possible were two things. First, the Rams knew they had a good head coach in McVay. Second, they had a team that was not only willing to trade their quarterback but was willing to take Goff off their hands.
The Rams will need to make some choices this offseason given that they are projected to be $17M over the cap once they get 51 players under contract. An extension for Stafford is certain to come, which will help with getting under the cap. I talked about that and other moves the Rams can make a couple of weeks ago.
The Rams' path to the Super Bowl is not one I recommend, though, because going "all in" multiple times over the years can put yourself in a worse position if you aren't careful. Just ask yourself what would have happened had Stafford not become available.
For teams that want to go "all in" on a veteran QB this coming offseason, should such a QB become available, there's nothing wrong with that move by itself. However, you need to end the "all in" moves there and focus on other means to fill holes. That's particularly true if you have a first-year head coach and don't know yet how successful he will be.