Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford says he and his teammates immediately turned their focus on overtime when they saw Caleb Williams’ touchdown pass at the end of the fourth quarter on Sunday night.
Stafford said on Let’s Go that Williams and Bears tight end Cole Kmet made a stunning play, but the Rams shook it off and focused on the task at hand, which was winning the game in overtime.
“When I see Caleb running back toward the 50-yard line I’m feeling pretty good about it,” Stafford said. “What an unbelievable play he made, throwing that ball up, and honestly a great job by Kmet too, leaning on Cobie Durant and then finding a way to shove off at the end to make a play. It was tough in the moment, but to be honest with you, there wasn’t a lot of panic on our sideline. It was like, ‘Alright, let’s go play football.’ We’ve got another quarter to play, basically, and found a way to come away with the win, which is what it’s all about this time of year.”
Williams’ pass was one of the most memorable plays of the NFL season, but the Rams did what it took in overtime to give themselves a chance of being the team everyone remembers from the 2025-26 season.
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We’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out which two teams are playing in Super Bowl LX, but we learned the identity of the game’s referee on Tuesday.
The NFL announced that Shawn Smith will head up the officiating crew for the game. It will be Smith’s first time refereeing the Super Bowl.
Smith entered the NFL’s officiating ranks as an umpire in 2015 and became a referee in 2018. He worked the Patriots’ win over the Texans in the divisional round of the playoffs last weekend.
Umpire Roy Ellison, down judge Dana McKenzie, line judge Julian Mapp, field judge Jason Ledet, side judge Eugene Hall, back judge Greg Steed, and replay official Andrew Lambert make up the rest of the crew. Ellison and Hall have worked three previous Super Bowls, Steed has worked two others and this will be McKenzie’s second Super Bowl assignment.
With each coaching hire that the Steelers nail — and they’re three-for-three since 1969 — the pressure builds to get the next one right, too.
So here they are, 19 years after their last search. With plenty of good options from which to choose.
The problem with having a bunch of quality candidates is that, eventually, a choice needs to be made. So who will they choose?
For now, the candidates are: Rams pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase, Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula, Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak, Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, and former Cowboys and Packers head coach Mike McCarthy.
As to the franchise’s three most recent coaches, dating back to the first term of the Nixon administration, each one (Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlin) was a defensive coordinator with no previous head-coaching experience. That formula, if followed again, would point to the likes of Shula, Weaver, Evero, and Minter.
But here’s the basic reality. Since hiring Tomlin in 2007, the game has changed. It has skewed more and more toward offense, with the post-2009 emphasis on player safety making it harder to play old-school, hard-nosed, Steel Curtain defense.
When the NFL started aggressively flagging and fining players for illegal hits on defenseless receivers, there was a disconnect between the league’s application of the rules and the manner in which Tomlin was coaching them. Eventually, the league put Tomlin on the Competition Committee in part to get him to buy in to the new way of playing the game.
As of 2026, it’s impossible for the Steelers to ignore the evolution of the game. And, frankly, their offense has been sluggish at best in the years after the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger. If the Steelers intend to never be in position to draft a franchise quarterback, they’ll need to find and develop one another way, either by hitting on a lower draft pick or getting more out of a veteran than he has done elsewhere. Having an offensive mastermind as the team’s head coach will help.
Then there’s the question of whether they want another coach who’ll stick around for 15 years or longer. The availability of Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy is intriguing, but he’s 62. Noll (23 seasons), Cowher (15), and Tomlin (19) were each in their 30s when hired.
At first blush, Shula feels like a perfect fit, given that his grandfather, Don, recommended Noll for the job. Only 15 days after Don Shula and Noll worked together in Super Bowl III (which their Colts lost to the Jets), Noll was hired by the Steelers.
But perfection is revealed after the fact. With a coach who isn’t fired because he performs well enough to not be. Plenty of first-time coaches fail, largely because the coordinator and head-coach skillsets are very different.
Wherever it goes, the weight of hiring three straight Super Bowl winners is palpable. And if it’s obvious from the outside, it’s inescapable on the inside.
The Seahawks had one of the top offenses in the league in the regular season and a double-barreled backfield played a big role in their success.
Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet ran for 1,757 yards and 16 touchdowns, which provided the 14-3 team with a strong complement to Sam Darnold’s 4,048 passing yards. That formula is going to have to be tweaked a bit against the Rams this week.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald announced that Charbonnet is out for the rest of the playoff run with a knee injury and that will put a heavier burden on Walker as the team tries to advance to the Super Bowl. On Monday, MacDonald said that the work Walker did to prepare for this season leaves him confident that he can do whatever’s asked of him the rest of the way.
“I know he was working through his foot at the beginning over the course of the offseason and that was frustrating for him because of the amount of work that he was putting in,” Macdonald said, via the team’s website. “And I think hopefully he realizes the dividends that that’s paid, that work that he’s put in to really get himself in a good spot up to this point, because what I’ve seen, I’ve seen a guy that’s, he’s gotten better throughout the season, so you can’t say that about all runners. And so that’s a tribute to him and how he’s taken care of his body.”
Walker’s 117 yards and three touchdowns against the 49ers provides support for Macdonald’s view and he’ll get a chance to star again this Sunday.
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford turns 38 next month. He’s far closer to the end than the beginning of a career that started in 2009. On this week’s Let’s Go! podcast, Stafford was asked whether he considers whether it’s his last chance to win another Super Bowl.
“I try not to think about that kind of stuff,” Stafford told Jim Gray. “I just try to enjoy the team that I’m on and the moment that I’m in. I love coming to work. I love the group that we get to do it with. These, like I said, opportunities don’t come every single year, so I just try to live in them and cherish them when they’re here. I sure hope it’s not my last opportunity, but we’ll see. You never know. Take these games and these seasons one at a time and figure it out from there. But I just know that I’m happy in the moment that I am right now doing what I’m doing.”
There’s no reason to think Stafford can’t keep going, for several years to come. He had a stellar season, being named first-team All-Pro for the first time in his career. And he could end up winning his first NFL MVP award.
The bigger goal is to win a Super Bowl. Stafford and the Rams are two games away from it.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said after Saturday’s win over the 49ers that there was optimism running back Zach Charbonnet avoided a serious knee injury, but that hope went away after further testing.
Macdonald said on Seattle Sports on Monday that Charbonnet will not be able to play in the NFC Championship Game and that he will miss the Super Bowl as well if the Seahawks are able to beat the Rams.
“The bummer is Charbs,” Macdonald said. “He’s got a significant knee injury unfortunately. Breaks your heart. He’s going to need surgery. He’s going to have a long road back.”
Macdonald did not specify the exact injury, but multiple reports say Charbonnet tore his ACL. If that’s the case, his recovery time will likely stretch into the 2026 season.
Charbonnet had five carries for 20 yards against the Niners. He had 184 carries for 730 yards and 12 touchdowns in the regular season.
Kenneth Walker will be the lead back for Seattle the rest of the way. Velus Jones was the other back on the roster Saturday and veteran Cam Akers is also on the practice squad.
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford says the weather in Chicago affected him on Sunday, to a great extent than weather has affected him in other big games in his career. But that’s not what he cares about.
Stafford noted that his individual stats were better in the playoffs last year on a cold day in Philadelphia, but the Rams lost. He’ll always take his team winning, even if his own numbers don’t look good.
“Obviously I could be better, but playoff football is about winning the football game,” Stafford said. “I played great, threw for a bunch of yards last year in the snow and we lost, so that shit sucks. I’m happy to have played a little bit worse today and going home with a win. So we’ll take that.”
Last year in Philadelphia, Stafford completed 26 of 44 passes for 324 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions, in a 28-22 loss. Yesterday in Chicago, Stafford completed 20 of 42 passes for 258 yards, with no touchdowns and no interceptions, in a 20-17 win. Stafford will take that every time.
Sean McVay was almost 31 when he landed the Rams’ head coaching job in 2017 and he’s enjoyed quite a bit of success in his nine seasons with the team.
Sunday’s win over the Bears was the 10th playoff win of his career. That’s double the amount that any other coach won before their 40th birthday.
Per Adam Schefter of ESPN, John Madden, Jon Gruden, Mike Tomlin and Zac Taylor are next on the list with five postseason victories before hitting 40.
McVay’s 10 career playoff wins also tie him with Bill Walsh, George Seifert, and Sean Payton for the 16th-most among all coaches. If McVay and Payton both advance to the Super Bowl, the winner will end the season tied with Tom Coughlin and Bill Cowher for ninth place on the all-time list.
The Rams’ first overtime possession on Sunday night fizzled when the Bears stopped a third-and-1 run for a two-yard loss. Rams coach Sean McVay said afterward that the failure on that play was 100 percent on him, for his play call.
“We start off, you feel like you’re getting a little bit of momentum,” he said. “I make a terrible third-down-and-1 call. No excuse for that. Should’ve used the timeout. They did a good job of having a good call on there and we got to punt it out.”
McVay said that his players had to overcome a poor game from their coach, as he said he never felt like he was in a good rhythm calling plays.
“I did not like the feel for the flow of the game that I had, outside of the first series where our guys did a great job,” McVay added. “Defensively, it kept us in it, in spite of how poor of a job I did for our group. But like I said, I’m really grateful for this group being able to find a way, stick with it and be able to overcome some bad coaching by me tonight.”
The Bears’ last, best chance to beat the Rams on Sunday night ended when a Caleb Williams pass to D.J. Moore was intercepted by Rams safety Kamren Curl. Williams said after the game that he and Moore just weren’t on the same page about where Moore would be.
“I got to go back and watch it, haven’t seen it and don’t really know, but in the moment, I saw the front-side safety down, front-sided concept,” Williams said. “Ended up getting hemmed up a little bit and so moved on and had D.J. going over top over all of it. Just a miscommunication between him and I. Tried to flatten him off under the safety and he kept it vertical, from what I saw in the moment.”
If the pass had been completed, the Bears would have been in range for a game-winning field goal. Instead, after Curl’s interception the Rams marched down the field for a game-winning field goal of their own.
“It’s tough. In these moments you feel that you let your team down,” Williams said. “It’s a good lesson learned for us, first time being in this situation for me and for us as a team. I’m excited for what’s to come, but obviously going to go back and watch this and figure out how I can be better.”
