A sea of 49ers fans flooded SoFi Stadium in Inglewood for the NFC Championship Game on Sunday, but the wave of red receded after the Los Angeles Rams escaped with a stunning 20-17 win.
Now the Rams will prepare to host the AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13 and no one was happier to crush the dreams of 49ers fans than Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford.
"It's great that it's here," Stafford told reporters when asked about playing the Super Bowl in his home stadium. "If we were playing in it, I didn't care where the hell it was. I don't give a s--t where it is. I'm like 'I just want to play in the dang thing.' But the fact that it's under this roof, it's going to be awesome. Our fans did an unbelievable job tonight making it a tough environment. Nice to send some of those red jerseys home, so that was cool."
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After 49ers fans took over SoFi Stadium during Week 18, Stafford's wife Kelly couldn't believe that her husband had to use a silent count while playing a home game.
"I'm not going to lie, I've never seen so many of the opposing team's fans at a game, and we came from Detroit and there were a lot of good traveling teams there, but that was wild," Kelly said on Jan. 13. "Like Matthew was on a silent count.
"Matthew was on a silent count, Jimmy Garoppolo was not, who's the opposing quarterback. It was crazy, again I've never seen anything like that but again, it made it very hard for us because I guess we weren't expecting to be on a silent count."
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Three weeks later, the Rams were able to overcome the throng of 49ers fans at SoFi Stadium.
As for Stafford, he finally is headed to the Super Bowl after languishing in Detroit for 12 seasons. There probably will be a lot of Bengals fans in the building in two weeks, but nothing quite like the turnout from 49ers fans twice in January.