The Superdome Showdown: The 2018 NFC Championship Preview
We could be on the precipice of an epic game.
The Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints will meet for the right to represent the National Football Conference in Super Bowl LIII. They have proven to be the best the NFL's senior conference has to offer this season. And both, while dominant, each took an interesting path to reach this crossroads.
The Rams came out firing on all cylinders to open 2018, eager to erase their quick playoff exit a season ago from memory. Quarterback Jared Goff led an offense on fire, posting 300 yard plus game four out of the first five weeks. The defense, led by the incomparable DE Aaron Donald made opposing offenses getting points harder than to draw blood from a stone. When the Curly Horns began playing teams that were seen as consensus Super Bowl contenders, they would be successful more times than not. This team's rise has been incredible, much to the chagrin of your humble scribe. Teams who often stack the deck with great talent (as the Rams did through this off-season) experience lackluster campaigns, most often due to a lack of synergistic chemistry. But this group of young men, led by another in head coach Sean McVay (all of 33 years of age), stand one game away from doing something not done in nearly 40 years, and that is take the LA Rams to the Super Bowl.
But in their way are the New Orleans Saints. Like the Rams, the Saints are trying to wash out a heartbreaking ending to their 2017 season. After winning the NFC South and defeating the Carolina Panthers in the Wild Card round, they would come from behind in Minneapolis to take a late fourth quarter lead. Practically everyone knows what happened next: Minnesota's Case Keenum to Stefan Diggs, Minneapolis Miracle, the Saints head home. 2018 began ignominiously for the Old Gold & Black, falling to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But then the Saints got lined up, ripping off ten wins in a row. QB Drew Brees put up league MVP candidate numbers, topping his own record for completion percentage in a season (74.4%) while throwing 32 touchdowns while only tossing 5 interceptions (for 1.0 percent). But this is more than a one man show. The two headed rushing beast this Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram give New Orleans not only balance on offense, but the ability to get big plays either on the ground or in the air. WR Micheal Thomas has blossomed into a top tier pass receiver, catching 125 balls for 1405 yards & 9 TD's. Couple all that with a defense that plays best when protecting a lead, and that is why the Saints won the NFC's top seed and can play in their second Super Bowl in franchise history if they prevail.
These teams played one another in Week 10 of the regular season, and that one was an instant classic. This promises to be an encore performance, only this time the stakes are exponentially higher. The only sad thing about this is one of these must go home afterward. Can the Saints hold serve in a building in which they have never lost in January during the Brees era, or do the Rams avenge their loss from earlier in the year at the most opportune time?
