More than a game

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 10th, 2022. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the Super Bowl.

The matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams happens on Sunday.

BROWN: WORLD’s Paul Butler has a preview of the game and talks to a Cedarville University student who’s had a front-row seat to Cincinnati’s memorable season.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: Sunday’s face-off between the 12 and 5 Los Angeles Rams and the 10 and 7 Cincinnati Bengals caps off an exciting season for the National Football League.

AUDIO: [CLIPS]

This year’s ratings saw a significant up-tick after years of decline.

TABOR: I love watching players that love playing the game, and love playing it at an elite level and are playing at an elite level.

Steven Tabor co-hosts the Tabor Gridiron podcast with his 13-year old son Isaac. Tabor enjoys football all season long, but especially during the postseason:

TABOR: I like the championship games better, because they sometimes are more entertaining, you know, the four teams battling out to get to the Super Bowl…

There have been a lot of good games this season. According to the NFL, 34 were decided by a game-winning score on the final play—the most in a single season. Another 49 games were decided by a game-winning score in the final minute of regulation or overtime. That tied the previous season record.

Tabor thinks that will continue into the Super Bowl this time around:

TABOR: I am really excited about the Super Bowl, because I think there's potential for it to really be a good game.

This year’s Super Bowl features two dominant defenses, so it could be a low scoring game. But Tabor thinks the stars of the show will be the offenses. The two quarterbacks are at very different points in their career—the Rams’ Matthew Stafford is a 13 season veteran—picked up last Spring from the Detroit Lions. He’s always been a good quarterback, but overshadowed...

TABOR: So I like now, putting him into a great coaching staff, a team that has surrounded him and has skills and it's allowed him to shine and really show everybody the skill that he's always had. So I'm super excited for Stafford.

For the Bengals, Joe Burrow is a very young quarterback. His first season was cut short by injury. But he returned this year and had a Cinderella second season.

TABOR: And I think that he has a potential to be a great quarterback. And I think really just that being coachable, and being able to learn quickly, like reading the defenses, understanding the plays, making those right decisions, and that is what has helped him kind of just advance quickly really in this league.

Of course an offense is much more than its quarterback. Tabor expects an exciting game from Rams wide receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Cooper Kupp, plus running back Cam Akers - all with interesting stories. And Bengals wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins have been exceptional all year long. Now Tabor is pulling for the Rams, but he finds the young Bengals team exciting to watch.

TABOR: The Bengals are really that kind of underdog team to say hey, let's let's root for them and really watch these young players shine and see what they can do. Can they handle the pressure? Can they handle the spotlight and continue to just have fun and play football the way that they know how to, and I’m made for this and I’m ready for this.

Someone who’s watched the Bengal’s season with great interest is Kurtis Gould. He’s a senior athletic training major at Cedarville University.

GOULD: There's friends of mine here at Cedarville that I’d tell them before the season, “we're going to the Super Bowl, we're gonna make it” and of course they all laughed and said, “Oh, there's no way on earth you're going to do that…”

Gould started a Bengals internship in May. As a student athletic trainer he helps keep the players hydrated, helps rehabilitate injured athletes, and maintains injury protective measures during practices so they don’t miss any games.

COVID restrictions have prevented student trainers from traveling with the team all season—and that’s continued into the postseason as well.

GOULD: (LAUGHS) Sore subject there. For the whole season, we haven't been able to go to away games, only home games. It’s been a little bit disappointing, but it's just how it is right now. So I'll have to watch them on TV just like everyone else.

Gould is a diehard Bengals fan. But he says ultimately, whether they win or lose, football isn’t the most important thing in life.

GOULD: These guys happen to have athletic abilities, which a lot of people praise and idolize. But it's not the biggest thing there is—it's not even the most important thing. A lot of people think it's their entire life when it isn't - they have families, they have kids, they have relationships, and that matters, honestly, to many of them more than football.

And for Kurtis Gould, that motivates him in his work as an athletic trainer.

GOULD: I feel called to use the abilities I have to help them, you'll help them perform at their top level. I can use it as a ministry to them, and be able to help them because when I'm working with an athlete and they have an injury that ends their season. Like it can be hard on an athlete when football is what they do, and so being able to work with them through that process and be able to get to know them on that personal level, be able to just talk with them, get to know them. It's their life, but ultimately isn't their entire life and being an athletic trainer with the Bengals isn’t my entire life. That is not how I define myself, because ultimately I am a child of God and that's more important to me than football.

Superbowl 56 kicks off Sunday, February 13th at 6:30pm Eastern.

Steven Tabor thinks the Rams will win by a touchdown. Kurtis Gould favors the Bengals by a last minute field goal. For what it’s worth, the annual EA Sports John Madden computer game simulation agrees…with Gould. It puts Cincinnati on top, winning 24-21. But it’s been wrong 3 out of the last 5 years—so only time will tell.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

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