Keep it clean and the Lombardi Trophy could be yours

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Stay clean. Avoid the critical mistakes.

That's a mantra both the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams should have adopted as they head to Sunday's Super Bowl.

Limit the turnovers and costly penalties. Don't waste timeouts, particularly in the second half. Get physical rather than fancy. Being efficient can trump being spectacular.

All they need to do is look back to the last time the Los Angeles area hosted a Super Bowl nearly three decades ago. That game at the Rose Bowl became an almost laughable rout as the Buffalo Bills kept surrendering the ball to the Dallas Cowboys.

“Just going to go out there and impose our will and play physical and let the chips fall where they may,” Bengals cornerback Eli Apple said.

Echoed Rams All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey: “Do our thing and do it the best we can. That's winning football.”

Sure, the Super Bowl is America's biggest sporting event; some would argue it is America's biggest event of any kind. It's splashy, it's overhyped, with a weeklong publicity machine by the league, the teams, the host city, the network televising it.

In the end, it's a football game. And most football games are won by the team that minimizes miscues.

The Rams are 4-point favorites, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, but they might not even be in this Super Bowl in their new $5 billion SoFi Stadium had 49ers safety Jaquiski Tartt not dropped an easy interception late in the NFC title game. Bringing in veteran Matthew Stafford at a hefty price in draft picks — along with a younger quarterback, Jared Goff, who was part of the LA team that lost in the 2019 Super Bowl, when he struggled mightily — has paid off richly for the Rams. Stafford’s 49,995 yards passing and 323 TD passes