The Los Angeles Rams entered Week 1 as the betting favorites to win Super Bowl LXI, sitting at +500 to hoist the Lombardi Trophy according to DraftKings Sportsbook. But instead of validating these odds, the Rams were run off the field in a 27-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.
While a season-opening loss to a division rival is bad on its own, the manner of the defeat puts Los Angeles in exceedingly rare, and unflattering, company.
Since 1995, only one team has gone on to win the Super Bowl after losing its regular-season opener by 20 or more points: the 2003 New England Patriots, who were blown out 31-0 by the Buffalo Bills in Week 1 before rattling off a championship run (per the Associated Press). Every other eventual
champion in that span avoided that kind of lopsided Week 1 result. For a team many pegged as this year's best in football before a single snap, falling by 20 in the opener is the sort of outcome that simply doesn't happen to Super Bowl-caliber rosters — at least not more than once in three decades.
The game itself made clear how far off script things went for Los Angeles. Matthew Stafford was held to 15-of-25 passing for 155 yards and an interception, while backup Stetson Bennett IV was forced into mop-up duty once San Francisco built a 20-point cushion in the fourth quarter. San Francisco also won the turnover battle, too, with an interception and a forced fumble swinging the game further in the 49ers' favor.
None of that means the Rams' championship hopes are dead — plenty of teams have recovered from ugly openers to make deep playoff runs. But as was noted earlier this summer, preseason Super Bowl favorites aren't always the best bets to win the Super Bowl: only 12.9 percent have won since 1995.
A 20-point loss to a division rival in Week 1 is not the start Los Angeles was hoping to use to buck that trend.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams' blowout loss is nearly unheard of for a Super Bowl contender
