The Los Angeles Rams are Super Bowl champions! Of course, what comes next after a sports championship is a grand parade, and the Rams held just that.
On Wednesday (February 16), the Rams held a celebration parade through Los Angeles to commemorate their first Super Bowl win since 2000. The parade, which stretched from the Shrine Auditorium to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, was filled with some wild moments.
The parade featured a fleet of specialized buses transporting the team slowly down the closed 1.1-mile stretch of road, observed by thousands of Rams fans along the sides. Odell Beckham Jr. sprayed champagne onto onlookers, Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp sported a Kobe Bryant jersey in homage to the late basketball legend, and rapper Jay Rock performed towards the end of the parade.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers, who both won championships in 2020, were notably snubbed of their parades due to COVID. The Rams managed to avoid falling into the same pitfall.
But the Rams parade was not all that it was hyped up to be. As the Rams are relatively new in Los Angeles (they were gone from the city from 1994-2016, having relocated to St. Louis), the parade was not nearly as crowded as other cities’ Super Bowl parades had been in the past. This was partially blamed on COVID, but with most restrictions now lifted, there was no excuse for sections of the parade resembling an outdoor church gathering.
Packed house in LA. Rams fans all over. Haven’t seen scenes like this in decades. pic.twitter.com/7EoEnSMo3a
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) February 16, 2022
Then, there was the attempt at rebranding the Hollywood Sign to read “Rams House,” which from some angles was quite hard to read, and didn’t quite turn out the way people had initially hoped.
And then, there was the infamous stage fall.
During the team presentation, NFL photographer Kelly Smiley fell backward off of the stage as she attempted to take a picture of Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford. Smiley, who ended up fracturing her spine, was immediately cared for by Stafford’s wife, Kelly, but Stafford himself simply walked away and drank a bottle of water, without seeming to care. Stafford has come under fire for his actions, or lack thereof.
https://twitter.com/kellysmiley23/status/1494165491224481792
“That’s me,” Smiley wrote on Twitter. “Waiting at the ER for X-ray results. Both my cameras broke but I’m ok.”
A GoFundMe page started by Smiley’s friend Tim Kothlow has already raised over $42,000, more than its initial goal of $30,000. The money, according to the post, will go toward covering Smiley’s medical expenses as well as replacing her two cameras which broke during the fall.
Regardless of Stafford’s intentions, it is undeniable that the accident that unfolded during the parade could have been tragic, and we at Celeb Secrets wish Kelley Smiley a full recovery.
What did you think of the Rams parade? Let us know, by either leaving a reaction below or by sending us a tweet at @celebsecrets.
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