Super Bowl 2022: Rams find recipe for success but are Bengals built better for the future?

There’s an element of luck in the draft, and the Bengals were lucky enough to have Joe Burrow drop into their laps after being the worst team in the league – now they must go all-out to protect him and let him fire them to glory.

Let’s not forget, Burrow has just had his first full season under his belt, receiver Ja’Marr Chase was a rookie and the average age of this squad was 26. The future is bright for the Bengals if they play it right.

And although their success has come from the draft, that also means spending some money in free agency, as they did last year to beef-up their defence with Trey Hendrickson, Mike Hilton and Chidobe Awuzie among others.

The plus side is they know exactly where their weakness is, and that’s an offensive line that let Burrow get sacked 70 times in the season, including 19 in the play-offs with seven of them in the Super Bowl.

Teams that have given up at least six sacks in the Super Bowl are now 0-7. More importantly, Burrow suffered a knee injury and he’s already had a serious knee problem – the team simply have to protect him or risk losing potentially their biggest ever star player.

Working in their favour is they’ve never been a more attractive destination for a new signing.

They never have and probably never will be a glamour outfit to rival LA or New York, but a young coach in Zac Taylor and young squad led by ‘Joe Cool’ at QB makes them a team players will want to play for.