Rams Star Puts Super Bowl on the Backburner with Incredible Jesus Statement
There wasn’t much positive for the Los Angeles Rams to glean from their excruciating 13-3 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.
The normally high-powered Rams offense sputtered the entire night, and few people outside of New England were thrilled to see the Patriots win another Super Bowl.
There was plenty of blame to go around for the Rams.
Quarterback Jared Goff looked overwhelmed by the moment. Whether by design or otherwise, star running back Todd Gurley was a virtual nonfactor.
Even the loaded Rams defense, which stymied the Patriots for most of the game, eventually got gassed and gave up some crucial scoring drives to New England in the fourth quarter.
Through it all, there was just one tiny glimmer of positivity for the Rams, and it was their dynamo Pro Bowl kicker, Greg “The Leg” Zuerlein.
It might not be much consolation to the losing kicker, but he did score all of his team’s points.
The loss will assuredly bother Zuerlein, much as it would any player to come up short in the NFL’s premier game, but it seems like the 31-year-old kicker is especially well-equipped to handle the adversity.
In an interview with the National Catholic Register that occurred right before the Super Bowl, Zuerlein made it clear that being in the NFL is something he did, not who he was.
“I enjoy playing football but also know that it will come to an end one day. The older I get, the more I see that it is not who I am, but what I do for a job,” Zuerlein said in a wide-ranging interview that included topics such as fatherhood and the big kicks he made against the New Orleans Saints in the NFC title game.
When it comes to fatherhood, Zuerlein opened up about having four young children and whether that helped him not be as nervous in big moments.
“Without a doubt. Little children prepare you, even better than specific practice situations, for anything that might happen,” he said. “There’s always something going on with the children, so my mind is occupied with their concerns rather than work worries.
“Plus, my children don’t care at all what I do at work. They are completely oblivious to that and are just happy to see me when I come home.”
But when it comes to fatherhood, Zuerlein shared a much more powerful message about family than how they helped him cope with nervousness.
“The most important goal of a single Catholic man is to get his soul to heaven, but the most important goal of a married Catholic man expands to getting not only his own soul to heaven, but also those of his wife and children,” he said in the interview. “It’s almost as if, as a result of the love that you share, you have one soul as a family.”
When asked why more people don’t embrace the faith, Zuerlein said, “Maybe if people knew how much they were loved, they would love more in return. Thinking of the extensive sufferings Christ went through specifically for the good of our souls is really helpful. He suffered so intensely in the Garden of Gethsemane that he sweated blood. Then he was betrayed by someone close to him, publicly lied about, abandoned by almost all his followers, mocked, tortured and murdered.”
“That was all freely done so that we would be able to rise up from sin and become heirs to heaven.”
Those are powerful and awesome statements to hear from an NFL star — and they especially help provide context for how he likely handled the tough loss in Super Bowl LIII.
Win or lose, it’s pretty clear that Greg Zuerlein has found a purpose much greater and much more important than football.
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