Maybe they should call it the Subway Bowl

 Subway used to have a hip slogan, "Eat fresh". This year's Super Bowl is as fresh a matchup as it gets.

The Kansas City Chiefs were denied a 3rd consecutive trip to the big dance, as this year's Cinderella, the Cincinnati Bengals, continued a string of upsets. The AFC North champions needed to go to overtime before defeating the AFC West champs on a field goal by Evan McPherson after a Patrick Mahomes interception.

The game was marred by the fact that the officials, despite letting the teams play out without throwing penalty flags in the 1st half, missed a bunch of obvious calls against both teams in the 2nd half, the most blatant of which came in overtime, when the Bengals overloaded the offensive line, and were not called for illegal formation, a play that, for now, cannot be reviewed.

For fans of the Buffalo Bills, whose offense never saw the field in overtime a week earlier, it was karma. Both teams had at least one possession this time, and it came down to who really had the hottest hand.

The Bengals hadn't been to the big dance since 1989, the 2nd of their 2 appearances, both against San Francisco and Joe Montana. This time, "Joe Cool" wears orange, black, & white, in the form of 2nd year QB Joe Burrow. Hmmmmm.

So the Bengals, like everyone else, waited to see if there would be a shot at total redemption, should this generation's 49ers continue their dominance over the Los Angeles Rams.

Simple answer: Nope.

The Rams traded Jared Goff to Detroit to get Matthew Stafford, and the trade revitalized Stafford's career, while Goff fell to the losing culture in Motown. Los Angeles made a couple more moves in-season, getting Von Miller from Denver and Odell Beckham, Jr. from Cleveland in separate deals. Both played key roles as the Rams snapped a six game losing streak---3 consecutive regular season series---against the Niners.

Photo courtesy Yahoo!.

Perhaps it is only fitting that Stafford, a month after his alma mater, Georgia, won the NCAA title in the College Football Playoff, ends the season taking the Rams to a title. However, Burrow, who won the national championship with LSU in 2020, will have something to say about that, especially now that he has been reunited with receiver JaMarr Chase, who was part of that 2019-20 LSU team.

The game, to be sure, will be more entertaining than the commercials, and it seems we're going to get an overdose of a certain retired QB who will be shilling beer and snacks, and probably, too, a certain online betting site........