How the Rams Beat the 49ers to Advance to the Super Bowl
The New York Times
Los Angeles’s high-profile roster additions provided sparks, but the homegrown talents Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp provided crucial plays to win the N.F.C. championship.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The N.F.C. championship game displayed two different teams, two different fan bases and two different strategies for building a roster.
There’s how the Los Angeles Rams did it, dotting their locker room with some of the league’s biggest stars and trading away draft picks at will with the hope of playing the Super Bowl in their sparkling $5 billion stadium.
And there’s how the San Francisco 49ers did it, drafting players that fit their style of grinding other teams with slow and physical plays. Those clashing approaches provided a back-and-forth exchange in Sunday’s game, but in the end, the Rams prevailed, concluding a season in which they made serious gambles to try to reach the championship game.
