Rams or Bengals? Jerry Jones Reveals Super Bowl LVI Rooting Interest
Sure, new blood in the Super Bowl is good for football. But, when it comes to the Dallas Cowboys, it makes finding a distinct rooting interest as difficult as running a quarterback draw complete with clock-stopping spike in 14 seconds.
In Sunday's Super Bowl LVI between, do Cowboys fans pull for the NFC's Los Angeles Rams or AFC's Cincinnati Bengals?
The Rams provide the logical local leaning, with stars Matthew Stafford (Highland Park) and Von Miller (Desoto) hailing from DFW high schools. But the Cowboys lost to L.A. in the 2018 playoffs, so there's that. When it comes to Cincinnati, there's little to like ... or dislike. Dallas has beaten the Bengals in the last four meetings, including Dec. 2020. But nothing about the matchup is remotely intriguing. In their 62-season history the Cowboys have only played them 13 times.
But with - fingers crossed - COVID's permission, Super Bowl parties are again a thing. There's food, fellowship, betting squares and, well, we gotta root for someone, right?
If pulling for a couple 30-something multi-millionaires who have DFW roots and landed in a Rams' uniform only via recent trade isn't enough to move your needle, allow Jerry Jones to weigh in. The Cowboys owner was born in Southern California's El Segundo, and later was instrumental in moving the Rams from St. Louis back to Los Angeles.
Jones recently recalled on 105.3 The Fan that he grew up in a $400 house built by his father, only a couple blocks from Super Bowl LVI site SoFi Stadium. Said Jones:
“There is such a romance to me for the Los Angeles Rams to be sitting there playing this championship game in that new stadium. ... They are about one mile from the little house that my parents lived when I was born. Got a lot of relatives out there. ... So, I am kind of rooting for them.”
Jones is also one of the biggest reasons the Rams are located on the West Coast and no longer the Midwest. It's not even that much of a stretch to say the Rams back in Los Angeles are part of Jones' Hall-of-Fame legacy.
He always said "the NFL needs to be in Los Angeles", and in 2014 he persuaded Rams owner Stan Kroenke to build SoFi Stadium before league owners approved the team's move. It was during a rift between the NFL's old money and new money, with the battle lines clearly drawn.
On one side, a Carson stadium for the soon-to-be Los Angeles Chargers, backed by the NFL’s old guard of owners led by Tennessee's Jerry Richardson, Bob Kraft of the Patriots, the Steelers' Rooneys, the Giants' Maras and the Chiefs' Hunt family. On the other, the Rams’ Inglewood proposal, championed by Jones, along with the likes of Washington's Dan Snyder and the Eagles' Jeff Lurie.
At a key, confrontational meeting, Cardinals owner Michael Bidwell was arguing that the NFL doesn't exist merely to make rich owners richer. He was cut off - and shut down - by Jones.
"So when you guys moved the team from St. Louis to Phoenix," Jones asked, "it wasn’t about the money? Yes, you did it for the money.”
Jones can't will the Cowboys back to the Super Bowl. But he was a strong voice in getting the Super Bowl back to his hometown.
So ... go Rams?
