All Ball Sports: Rams at home, Costa, Redondo hoopsters hope for rematch

Cole Stokes blasts his way to the basket during the Sea Hawks 59-54 victory over Peninsula Monday night, at Peninsula Photo by Ray Vidal

By Paul Teetor

They finally flipped the script.

After a season spent building a big lead and then watching most or all of it evaporate, the Rams tried the opposite approach Sunday afternoon: fall behind by double digits and then come roaring back to win in the final minutes.

And it worked spectacularly as the Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 for the NFC championship, after trailing 17-7 in the fourth quarter!

Next stop: the Super Bowl which, as you may have heard, will be played at SoFi Stadium.

Whose House?

Rams House!

Officially, the Cincinnati Bengals are the home team for the February 13 game. But that’s just a technicality based on the rotating designation determined by the league. It happens to be the AFC’s turn this year.

But the reality is that this will be the third home game – out of their four playoff games – in the Rams’ determined march to the Super Bowl.  

How big was this win? So big that Mr. Big – also known as Rams owner Stan         Kroenke, who spent $5.5 billion of his own money to build SoFi Stadium – actually made a rare public appearance after the game.

“I’m so happy for all the Ram fans, and for all the people, all the workers and businesses of this area, who support the Rams,” he said. “It’s unbelievable…fantastic. You look around here…. whose house?”    

He didn’t mention it, of course, but no one was happier than him at the Rams making it all the way to the Super Bowl. It was the realization of a goal that he had laid out to General Manager Les Snead and Coach Sean McVay two years ago when LA was announced as the site of Super Bowl 56.

And the multi-billion-dollar construction fee wasn’t the only time he opened his wallet wide to help build a Super Bowl contender. Every time he was asked to spend extra – whether in cash or in future draft picks – he gave the green light to get available elite players, like quarterback Matthew Stafford, linebacker Von Miller and wide receiver Odell Beckham.

Each of those players had a crucial role in Sunday’s smashing comeback victory.         

Forget whether or not the Rams actually win the Super Bowl. Kroenke’s real return on his investment will come over the next two weeks as he luxuriates in the buzz that will surround him and his team as his fellow team owners and the rest of the sporting world find their way to Inglewood to kiss his ring and marvel at his incredible state-of-the-art stadium.

Who cares if he had to pay a court-ordered judgment of more than $700 million to the City of St. Louis just a couple of months ago as a penalty for up and leaving that provincial fly-over burg six years ago in violation, the city claimed, of the contractual agreement they had with the Rams.

Without going into the long and complicated legal arguments about the contract he had signed with the city and the conditions under which the Rams could leave, suffice it to say a federal judge found the city’s arguments persuasive enough to order him to pay up big-time.

And pay up he did. Which, as it turned out, was a relatively small price to pay for what he is going to experience over the next two weeks. And if the Rams do actually beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl – and they started out as four and a half point favorites in Vegas as of Sunday night – look for LA to stage an extended celebration that could last several weeks.

And for the 74-year-old money-bags Kroenke – who had the smarts to marry Ann Walton, daughter of Walmart founder James “Bud” Walton almost 50 years ago — he can check off one of the last items on his bucket list.

Although his critics are howling that he essentially bought himself a Super Bowl contender with all his money, and all those imported stars who played in Sunday’s game, the truth is that the most important – and most valuable player – turned out to be a 2017 third round draft choice out of Eastern Washington University with the perfect football name of Cooper Kupp – the blond, blue-eyed kid with suction-cup hands.

Traditionally, National Football League Most Valuable Players are usually quarterbacks or, once in a while, running backs. Rarely does a wide receiver win that coveted honor.

And this year looks no different, with Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady the heavy favorites to win the coveted award. But Kupp, who won the rare triple crown of receivers this year – leading the league in passes caught with 145, yards gained with 1,947 and touchdowns scored with 16 – deserves it even more than they do. Kopp’s 1,965 yards from scrimmage were the most ever by a wide receiver, surpassing former Detroit Lion Calvin Johnson’s record set during the 2012 season when his quarterback was a guy named Matthew Stafford.

In All Ball’s humble opinion, Kupp is the real MVP, not just of this game, not just of the playoffs, but of the entire season.

And he just may win it, if the 50 sportswriters who vote on it can get past their obsession with choosing a quarterback. Without Kupp, it’s fair to say the Rams probably don’t even make the playoffs. That’s how valuable he was this year to his team. 

Under the rules, the voting is supposed to be based on the regular season only. But even on that basis, Kupp should win. His role in Sunday’s victory was symbolic of his role in every game of the season in which the Rams finished 12-5 despite a three-game losing streak in November.

Stafford, who had a mid-season slump that nearly killed the Rams – he threw a pick-six in three consecutive games – relies on Kupp so much that at one-point teams were double and triple-teaming him because it seemed like Stafford threw the ball to him on nearly every passing play.

That over-reliance on Kupp was abated somewhat for the last third of the season when the Rams signed Beckham, a super-talented wide receiver who had washed out in both New York and Cleveland and had become known as a headcase who was all about me-me-me and couldn’t be trusted to be a good teammate.

But at least he hadn’t torn off his clothes mid-game and stomped out of the stadium like Brady’s favorite receiver, Antonio Brown. So Coach Sean McVay was willing to give him a chance to rehab his reputation and his season once the Browns cut him loose.

Sunday it all paid off as Kupp and Beckham combined to catch 20 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns by Kupp.

Over the next week most of the mainstream media will make a point of claiming that trading the reviled former Rams quarterback Jared Goff to the Lions for Stafford was the move that won the Rams this game and got them to the Super Bowl. And there is some truth to that, because even on his worst day Stafford is better than Goff.

But the reality is a little more nuanced. Stafford started out this game by playing like a Goff clone. He missed two early chances at touchdown passes because the ball was a bit late and behind his intended receiver. Then he was intercepted in the end zone, opening the door for the 49ers to score their first TD.

Stafford’s numbers for the game – 31 of 45 for 337 yards with one interception and two TD’s – are perfectly respectable but hardly the kind of great numbers he will need to win the Super Bowl against an up-and-coming gunslinger like the Bengals’ Joe Burrow.

No, he won this game for two reasons. First, his counterpart, San Fran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo played at least one level below him – he hit on only 16 of 30 passes for 232 yards for two TD’s and one key late interception – and second because 49ers safety Jaquiski Tartt dropped a sure interception that would have completely altered the trajectory of the game late in the fourth quarter. 

Stafford inexplicably threw a balloon-ball up for grabs that came up short of his intended target by at least five yards. The wounded-duck pass landed in Tartt’s waiting hands. Then, miraculously, he first tossed the ball around like a hot potato and finally dropped it on the ground for an incomplete pass as his teammates and coaches groaned in frustration and he slapped his untrustworthy hands on his helmet. Everyone on the field and in the stands and those watching on TV knew right away that the 49er’s had just blown their golden opportunity to steal the game and that the Rams had just dodged an unguided missile aimed straight at their hearts.

The Rams kept the ball and soon tied the score at 17-17 with six minutes left. Then the 49ers helped them by going away from what had been working for them all game – pounding the Rams with do-it-all wide receiver/running back Deebo Samuel – and by making a cowardly decision to punt the ball away on a fourth-and-two situation instead of going for it. In other words, they played not to lose rather than playing to win. 

As usual, that strategy failed when Jimmy G finally made the fatal mistake that everyone had been waiting for all game. With the Rams leading 20-17 he faded back to pass under heavy pressure from Aaron Donald and his pass-rushing buddies – Von Miller, Leonard Floyd and Greg Gaines. As Donald grasped his leg and started dragging him down to the ground, Jimmy G threw a crazy, no-chance pass up for grabs. It was intercepted by cornerback Travain Howard and the game was essentially over.        

No one beats Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams seven straight times.

Whose House?

Rams House

David Solimando added three points to Redondo’s narrow victory over Peninsula Monday night. The two teams will meet again this week in the Bay League Tournament. Photo by Ray Vidal

 

Mustang Boys, Redondo Girls Top-Seeded Ballers     

Two weeks ago the Mira Costa boys basketball team suffered a tough 53-45 loss to archrival Redondo in their first Bay League game of the season when they let Sea Hawk guard Tyler Doiron run wild and score 24 points. Since then, the two teams have gone in opposite directions in the pandemic-shortened season that will culminate this week with a first-ever league tournament.

That the two teams would respond strongly to Redondo’s upset win was not surprising. What was surprising was the direction each team took: the loser, Costa, went 4-0 and the winner, Redondo, went 0-3.

That post-rivalry game record has set up the Mustangs as the top seed in the league tournament this week with a 4-1 league record while the Sea Hawks are the sixth seed with a 1-4 league record.

In other words, the only league win the worst team in the league had was over the best team in the league, record wise. It just shows that when it comes to games between these two ancient rivals, you can throw the records out and start factoring in emotions, familiarity and tribal identity. 

Now the Mustangs get a first-round bye in the league tournament and do not play until Wednesday night, when they will host the winner of the Palos Verdes — Santa Monica game, which will be played Monday night. Redondo will play at third-seeded Peninsula Monday night and if they win, will then play at second-seeded Culver City Wednesday night. That means the only possible re-match with Costa would be in the championship game Friday night if they both make it that far.

Costa Coach Neal Perlmutter said the Redondo loss was a wake-up call for his team.

“We’ve been much more locked in on defense since then,” he said. “We always were a defensive-minded team, but now we’ve changed from being a trapping team on defense to a team that switches everything. Most of our guys are a similar size and they’re all good athletes, so it’s working out well for us.”

That’s an understatement: since that shocking loss they’ve been suffocating teams defensively. That lock-down defensive mentality reached a peak last week when they traveled up the Hill and destroyed both Peninsula and Palos Verdes, in the process ruining Senior Night for each team.

The Mustang boys beat Peninsula by a shocking score of 71-28 Tuesday night – holding its star, Liam Miller, to 2 points — and then followed that up with a 57-26 beat down of PV Friday night.

“The kids have really bought into our defensive plans now,” Perlmutter said. “They know we can shut teams down and they take great pride in our defense.”

Those two wins left the Mustangs with a 16-5 regular season record going into the tournament. But Perlmutter said the improvement has been on offense as well as defense.

“Will Householter is playing as well as he ever has for us, and Dylan Black is playing more consistently,” he said.  “And Nick Lundy has been a consistent scorer for us all year.”

Meanwhile the Mustang girls team, which also lost to Redondo, also ended up with a 4-1 league record after beating Peninsula and Palos Verdes last week.  They will be second-seeded in their league tournament, while Redondo will be top-seeded. Thus neither team will play in the first round Monday night. If they both win Wednesday night Redondo would host the re-match in the tournament championship game Friday night.
Coach John Lapham, who already has a platoon of good guards, has discovered one more in freshman shooting sensation Kristin Kim. She had 18 points in a 68-23 win over Palos Verdes Friday night, while connecting on six of seven three-point shots.

“It didn’t surprise me, because she has been shooting well in practice all year,” Lapham said. “I already knew she is a really good shooter, and now she’s showing it in our games too.”

The girls also beat Peninsula 60-43 last week, and will host them Wednesday night in a tournament game.

“They’re a really good team, well coached with good shooters,” Lapham said.  

If Costa beats Peninsula Wednesday night and Redondo beats the winner of Monday night’s PV-Santa Monica game, then the two rivals will meet in the league championship game Friday night. It will be held at Redondo.

Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com

Follow: @paulteetor

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