CHICAGO — We’ve seen these movies before, or at least most of them.
With the NFL’s conference championship games set — the Rams at Seattle following New England at Denver — three of the four possible Super Bowl permutations are rematches.
Rams-Patriots? There have been two of those, at the end of the 2001 and 2018 seasons.
And Seattle has played both combinations, beating the Broncos in the 2013 season and losing to the Patriots a year later.
Of the four possibilities, the only one that hasn’t happened is Rams-Broncos.
There are strong ownership ties binding those two franchises. Among his many sports holdings, Rams owner Stan Kroenke also owns the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche. Although he built his empire with real estate and as a developer, he’s married to Ann Walton Kroenke — of the Walmart family — who is a first cousin of Rob Walton, who led the group that purchased the Broncos in 2022.
The Broncos last won the Super Bowl 10 years ago, weeks after the Rams were approved to move back to Los Angeles, and it happened at Levi’s Stadium, site of this year’s game. That was when Peyton Manning won his second ring, with his second franchise, then called it a career.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went right for the Rams in their 20-17 overtime victory against the Chicago Bears in the NFC divisional playoffs at Soldier Field.
There’s a possibility that Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford could follow that blueprint. He’s on his second team, having spent the first part of his career with Detroit, and he already has one ring. But whereas Manning was clearly in the sunset of his storied career, Stafford remains at the top of his game, and likely will be this season’s NFL Most Valuable Player.
Still, Stafford will turn 38 the day before the Super Bowl, and it wouldn’t be much of a curveball if that were his last game, especially if the Rams were to win.
Rams tight end Terrance Ferguson is from Littleton, Colo., a suburb of Denver, and Broncos general manager George Paton is from La Cañada and played football at Loyola High and UCLA.
If the Seahawks were to win the NFC — and oddsmakers have them as 2½-point favorites — they would look to repeat against Denver or atone for that painful loss to New England.
It was at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, remember, that Seattle rolled over Manning and the Broncos, 43-8, behind a smothering defense. Pete Carroll’s team looked unbeatable.
A year later in Arizona, one of the most excruciating moments in Seattle sports history.
With 20 seconds left and the Seahawks a yard away from the go-ahead touchdown, Patriots rookie Malcom Butler picked off a goal-line pass by Russell Wilson. Seattle inexplicably decided to throw instead of handing off to battering ram Marshawn Lynch, who was all but automatic in short-yardage situations.