No matter where they go, the Rams have always found success:
The Cleveland Rams won the NFL Championship in 1945, the St Louis Rams won the 1999 championship in Super Bowl XXXIV, and the Los Angeles Rams won the 2021 championship in Super Bowl LVI.
No other franchise has ever won a championship in three different cities. How did the Rams go there and get here?
The Cleveland Rams were founded in 1936 by attorney and businessman Homer H. Marshman and former Ohio State player-coach Damon “Buzz” Wetzel
as part of the second American Football League and joined the NFL in 1937.
Nine years later, on December 16th, the Rams defeated the Washington Redskins 15-14 while playing in front of the home crowd. A temperature of −8 °F led to a low-scoring game, and a play that prompted a significant rule change provided the margin of victory.
Washington had the ball at their own 5-yard line when Hall of Fame QB Sammy Baugh dropped back to pass, but the ball hit the goalpost, which, in those years, was situated right on the goal line, and fell back into the end zone, resulting in a safety and two points. It was the margin of victory in a one-point game.
The St. Louis Rams
In 1946, the Rams moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles, where they played until the end of the 1994 season. They then moved to St. Louis, where five years later, the Greatest Show on Turf under head coach, Mike Martz, wreaked havoc on NFL defenses for the next three years. During that time, they rewrote numerous offensive records, had three MVPs-QB Kurt Warner with two, and RB Marshall Faulk with the other. The team also made two Super Bowl appearances, winning one.
In 1999, the Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV. They barely hung on to win by a score of 23-16 to beat the Tennessee Titans. When I say barely hung on, it came down to a 73-yard bomb to Isaac Bruce in overtime, followed by Titans receiver Kevin Dyson being stopped two feet short of the goal line as time expired—one of the most exciting games ever.
After the 2015 NFL season, the team sought and received approval from the other owners to move back to Los Angeles in time for the 2016 NFL season. It was, to say the least, heartbreaking for the St Louis fans, many of whom remain bitter to this day.
On to Los Angeles
In 2016, under Jeff Fisher, the Rams traded significant draft capital to select Jared Goff. After a dismal start, the Rams fired Fisher as head coach 13 games into the season.
That’s where Sean McVay comes in.
In McVay’s first two years, he made the playoffs, ultimately losing in SB LIII, a significant turnaround, but Goff couldn’t deliver everything McVay wanted from him, and the team missed the playoffs the following year. Back in the playoffs in 2020, they were summarily dispatched by the Green Bay Packers. McVay had had it with Goff, and one of the biggest offseason trades ever went down that winter, leading to the acquisition of Matthew Stafford.
2021 was the culmination of a career spent toiling for the Detroit Lions, one of the worst franchises in the game, for Matthew Stafford. Finally hooking up with a coach who could unlock his talents, Stafford blossomed. It was as if he and McVay had some kind of Vulcan mind meld the way they both saw the game. In terms of symbiotic relationships, this is the poster child.
It seemed like destiny that the Rams would go on to win Super Bowl LVI in their home stadium. In a classic game, they beat the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20
But you probably knew that.
