Neutral? Hah!

[Bob Gill]

During the Chiefs' game the other day, the announcers brought up something we've probably all seen by now: that Mahomes has never played a road game in the playoffs. They did admit that his three Super Bowl appearances were not HOME games; but since they were played at neutral sites, they still weren't road games.

But wait a minute! They lost to Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl, which was PLAYED IN THE BUCCANEERS' HOME STADIUM. How the hell is that not a road game? We're just supposed to accept that because the NFL insists that the Super Bowl is played at a neutral site? That's ridiculous.

I have no real point to make here, but that really annoyed me.

[Brian wolf]

I agree as well Bob ... the Rams suspiciously had the "home" game the next season. Its in the books though. I get the feeling the Dolphins will visit Arrowhead in the wild card game ...

[Citizen]

Tangentially related factoid: During their Super Bowl era, the Vikings played 10 out of their 11 non-SB playoff games at home. And most of these were before playoff teams were seeded; they just benefited from the luck of the rotation system that many times. The one year they would have had to go on the road as NFC Central champion (1972), they missed the playoffs.

[Lee Elder]

The Rams played their first Super Bowl in the Rose Bowl, losing to the Steelers. It was the first Super Bowl played in the home market for one of the participating teams.

[rhickok1109]

I'm sure there may be some minor advantages in playing on your home field, but isn't the chief advantage that it's filled with your fans?
You don't get that in the Super Bowl because each team is allotted the same nu9mber of tickets.

[RichardBak]

I'm sure there may be some minor advantages in playing on your home field, but isn't the chief advantage that it's filled with your fans?
You don't get that in the Super Bowl because each team is allotted the same nu9mber of tickets.

Exactly right. I've always equated Super Bowl crowds with a lot of those "fans" you see every April on Opening Day, but never thereafter.

[Brian wolf]

It seemed like when the 49ers played the Dolphins in 1985, Palo Alto Stanford Stadium was home field advantage ...

[rhickok1109]

I'm sure there may be some minor advantages in playing on your home field, but isn't the chief advantage that it's filled with your fans?
You don't get that in the Super Bowl because each team is allotted the same nu9mber of tickets.

Exactly right. I've always equated Super Bowl crowds with a lot of those "fans" you see every April on Opening Day, but never thereafter.

That's quite accurate.
A friend of mine who died a couple years ago had four Patriots' season tickets for more than 50 years, going back to their AFL days. He would have loved to see them in the Super Bowl but he never won the lottery they held to decide which season ticket holders would be entitled to buy SB tickets.
But another local guy went to quite a few Super Bowls. He was offered FREE tickets every year--even when the Pats weren't playing in it--because he owns a McDonald's franchise and McDonald's is a regional TV sponsor of their games. But he's never been to a regular-season game.

[Throwin_Samoan]

I agree as well Bob ... the Rams suspiciously had the "home" game the next season. Its in the books though. I get the feeling the Dolphins will visit Arrowhead in the wild card game ...

How was it suspicious when the site for Super Bowl LVI was chosen six years before the actual game? Jeff Fisher was their coach and Case Keenum started the majority of their games when the site was determined. Sean McVay was an assistant in Washington and Matthew Stafford was still in Detroit at that time.

And if the NFL was going to do some chicanery with the site, why did they wait 57 years to pull that trick? It wasn't suspicious, it was a new multi-billion dollar stadium and new stadiums get Super Bowls.

[Brian wolf]

Yep, new stadiums get SBs and the Rams site was chosen for the SB game in 2022 and it just so happens that the Rams trade for Stafford before the season, while giving Detroit Goff, and Stafford happens to take his team all the way to a SB victory, after being more injury prone, with little success in Detroit ... In the meantime just before the playoffs, the NFL and Rams owner Stan Kroenke are ordered to pay restitution to the city of St Louis to the tune of nearly a billion dollars that the other owners want him to pay. As Kroenke admitted in a post SB interview, " There is a process, and we followed that process" ... which stirred speculation at the time.

If youre going to cheat out a city and give the NFL what it wants with relocation back to LA while financing a new stadium before having to pay restitution to the city you cheated in the first place, you might as well get a championship out of it. Remember, the Rams didnt have support from alot of the community once the new stadium was built but low and behold ... they get a non-call in the 2018/19 NFC Championship that helps put them in the SB, where they fail miserably to the Patriots.

You can look up the older threads, I joked about it when Kroenke was ordered to pay the city of St Louis, before the playoffs were even thought of, that the Rams might go all the way.
This was late November or early December in 2021.

Yes, I could be wrong and I believe in owner shenanigans as much as Brian Tuohy ... but it still makes you wonder