This article originally appeared in Issue LXIX of Gridiron magazine – for individual editions or subscriptions, click HERE

The Venice Beach boardwalk stretches for more than two miles. It’s packed full of street vendors and performers, skateboarders and dog walkers.

On this morning, however, hours after the Los Angeles Rams held off the Cincinnati Bengals to win Super Bowl LVI at nearby SoFi Stadium, the famous Muscle Beach lies empty, save for a family taking photos, their faces pressed against the wire that houses the gym equipment. Nearby, two men in their forties with their shirts off play paddle tennis, a bastardised version of tennis on a smaller court that uses a depressurised ball and a solid bat. Sweat drips almost constantly from the hair of one of them onto the court, and the ball occasionally runs through a hole in the fence and bounces away down the boardwalk, forcing a prolonged stoppage in play.

There are small clutches of Rams and Bengals fans wandering around, heads heavy from the night before. Above the hubbub and the distant sound of skateboarders and pick-up hoopers, a Latino man in a Cam Akers jersey shouts across at a Cincy fan waiting outside the Fashion Factory, one of many cheap t-shirt stores that line the beachfront. She too is wearing a replica shirt, but this one is white and orange with the number 28 and the name ‘Mixon’ on the back. “Should have kept him in the game,” the man cries, walking towards her. “Should have never taken him out. Second-and-one at the 49 and you don’t get a yard? Should have won a damn Super Bowl.”

In the quiet hours of darkness, long after family members and team officials have left Bengals coach Zac Taylor to his own thoughts, the sentiments of those on Venice Beach are almost certainly something that costs him sleep in the days after the defeat. When I got almost everything right this season, how did I get the three most crucial plays of my career so wrong?

As Eric Weddle tackles Tyler Boyd a yard short of the sticks on the final drive of the game, there are 75 seconds left and just 49 yards between Taylor’s Bengals and a first Super Bowl victory in the 55-year history of the franchise. They’re seven yards from Evan McPherson’s field goal range, five if you count the 60-yarder he made in high school. In fact, they’re just a yard away from where he was making kicks some four hours previously, albeit in the less pressured circumstances of the warm-up, his only challenge being to stay out of the 90-degree sun coming through the 183,000 square feet of clear plastic roof panelling that adorns SoFi.

Whichever way you cut it, Zac Taylor is metres away from Super Bowl glory. As he looks at his playsheet, he’s not thinking about his kicker – who’s gone 12-for-12 in the playoffs – putting the game into overtime.

He’s thinking about winning.

In the moments before the start of this final possession, the Rams head coach Sean McVay is nervous. He isn’t contemplating his forthcoming marriage, or the reports that surfaced pre-game that he was coaching for the final time aged just 36, heading instead for the highly lucrative broadcast booth. He, too, is consumed with winning. But, as an offensive coordinator, things are out of his control. It’s his much-vaunted defense that has to step up.

“Hey, what else could you want?” he screams at his players as he walks down the sideline. “What else could you want? Right now. Let’s go. Let’s go.” He low-fives Von Miller, and then Aaron Donald before shouting one final instruction to his Hall of Fame defensive tackle. “Hey, Aaron. This is the moment.” Donald turns and fixes his head coach with a glare that he holds for a split second, before nodding and returning to his own thoughts. He too isn’t thinking about similar reports about this being his final game.

He’s thinking about winning.

After the nine-yard pick-up on first down, Weddle looks across at the down marker and sees that he held Boyd short. Burrow is immediately calling the next play. NBC’s camera cuts to Zac Taylor’s face. There are still 35 seconds left on the play-clock and he’s talking to his quarterback. The last thing Burrow hears in his ears is, “Let’s go.” 1.06 remains.

The Bengals still have two timeouts, although neither is required here. Burrow takes a second to re-align his skill position players. Boyd comes to ask a question. The former Heisman winner points him back to the left slot. Then it’s Ja’Marr Chase’s turn. He jogs down, gets an instruction, and then runs back outside to the right of his QB. His offensive line turns and are told the snap count. Centre Trey Hopkins says something to RG Hakeem Adeniji as they bend down. Taylor has his team in a 3×1 formation with three receivers to the left, one to the right. The lone back is third down specialist Samaje Perine, on his third team in five seasons. The Rams are in off-man with six DBs on the field. The clock ticks. Now 57 seconds remain.

Burrow surveys the field. Tick-tock, tick-tock. The snap comes four seconds later. He looks left, but the routes are slow developing. Initially, the pocket is clean, but then Von Miller puts a spin move on RT Isaiah Prince and Burrow has to make a decision. To his left, TE CJ Uzomah springs open underneath at the 44, enough for a first down. Instead, with Miller a stride away, Burrow launches for all of it down the right sideline to Chase, who’s locked up with Jalen Ramsey. The ball sails over their heads and lands at the feet of a cameraman at the 11-yard line. The clock stops with 48 seconds left.

Third-and-1 at the 49.

Burrow looks to the sideline for instruction. Evan McPherson puts his helmet on for the first time this drive. He picks a ball up, tightens his chin strap, then puts the ball down under the automatic holder in front of his kicking net, and takes four steps back towards a phalanx of photographers. Meanwhile, Taylor has a play ready. “They were getting a little softer,” he would say of the Rams defense after the game. “I thought we could steal a first down then take some shots at the end zone.”

The play clock ticks down to 12, 11, 10. Cincinnati has two receivers to the left, one to the right, with Uzomah off-set as an H-back outside and a little behind his RT. Crucially, there is no Joe Mixon on the field. Perine again flanks Burrow.

“I kinda knew they were gonna run it,” Donald tells NBC’s Peter King after the game. Donald was right. In the moments before the snap, he’s playing as a four technique, slightly over the inside shoulder of Prince, controlling the B gap. His running mate Greg Gaines is playing a one-tech role on the outside shoulder of the centre. Von Miller and Leonard Floyd are playing as nines and sevens, outside the shoulders of the Bengals’ tackles. Taylor thinks he has it called perfectly. The Rams are expecting a pass. “Greg did a good job collapsing the A gap,” Donald said, “making it small to the point where it was hard for Perine to squeeze through. I actually thought he got the first down.”

But Perine was short. Held back by one of the single best plays in Super Bowl history. At the snap, the Bengals run a double motion: First Boyd, from the left on a fake jet sweep, freezes Miller. As he passes Burrow, Uzomah runs the opposite way and blocks down on Floyd. Upfront, Cincinnati has three blockers on two defenders. Quinton Spain and Hopkins combo block Gaines inside, leaving Adeneji one on one with Donald. The 312lb Gaines gets a great jump and has leverage on Spain, pushing him backwards, the combo block broken before it can begin. Gaines locks out his arms and steers Spain into the A gap. On the other side, Adeneji is onto Donald quickly, but crucially his hands are low and wide. He’s lost leverage, and Donald rips his right hand up onto the left shoulder pad of the guard and drives him back into Perine’s lap. The running back crashes into the back of Adeneji, but his momentum carries him forward. He’s half a yard from the first down.

Gaines is now on the floor but holding Perine’s legs. Donald has torqued Adeneji out of the hole and, quick as a flash, disengages and reaches his right arm around the guard and holds Perine back from the line to gain, twisting and contorting himself — making the stop. The down judge Derick Bowers runs in and signals the Bengals are short by a foot. The back judge Scott Helverson helps Donald to his feet. Would the stronger, faster Mixon have made it? It is the question that hangs over Cincinnati. In the NBC booth Al Michaels, calling probably his last Super Bowl says simply, “Clock stops, 43 seconds, and here’s your ball game on a fourth-and-one.”

Back out on Venice Beach, the Bengals fan in the Joe Mixon jersey drifts off along the boardwalk alone with her own thoughts. A few miles away, as her team gets ready to board the buses that will take them to the airport, Zac Taylor walks into the lobby of the hotel. “Didn’t get much sleep,” he tells a beat reporter. Aaron Donald may have won the Super Bowl, but Taylor’s three-play calls might just have lost it.

Enough to keep a man awake at night.

The Ballad of Aaron Donald

Donald’s closing two-play sequence will go down as one of the greatest in NFL history. His place on the league’s Mt. Rushmore of defensive players is now secured. But has he overtaken Lawrence Taylor as the most influential defensive player to ever play? Consider this:

In his eight seasons in the league, Donald has:

• Been defensive rookie of the year (2014)
• Won three Defensive Player of the Year crowns
• Made the 2010s all-decade team
• Been named a first-team All-Pro seven times, and a Pro Bowler in all eight seasons
• Missed only two games in eight years, neither of which were injury-related
• Forced 48 fumbles and totalled 150 TFLs
• Been the decisive force in swinging a Super Bowl, finishing more pressures individually (8) than the Bengals defense had as a collective (6)

Finally, he’s a champion.

This article originally appeared in Issue LXIX of Gridiron magazine – for individual editions or subscriptions, click HERE