Picture the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVI, February 2022. SoFi Stadium — their stadium, in their city — shaking as Cooper Kupp hauls in the go-ahead touchdown against the Cincinnati Bengals with 1:25 left on the clock. A franchise once written off as St. Louis’ problem, mocked on arrival in Tinseltown, scorned for leaving one fanbase without securing another — suddenly lifting the Lombardi Trophy on home turf. 

Sean McVay had done it in six years. Six years from rebuilding project to champions of the world, in the most audacious and expensive stadium in professional sport. Fast forward to the eve of 2026 training camps, and the Big Game is poised to return to the big stadium. And online betting sites once again make the Rams contenders to hoist the Lombardi on home turf. 

The latest odds from Lucky Rebel Sportsbook make McVay’s men the clear +750 favorite to win Super Bowl LXI next February. Their city and stadium sharing rivals, the Chargers are also a contender at +1600. But how have both teams fared since swapping their former homes for Los Angeles and updating their iconic logos to match their new surroundings in the process? Let’s take a look. 

Los Angeles Rams — The Weight of Greatness

The Rams returned to Los Angeles in 2016 after 21 seasons in St. Louis, and the institutional instinct was to hedge — to ease into Hollywood, rather than declare themselves. That navy blue and champagne gold ram-head, worn since 2000, was everything wrong with that thinking: corporate, apologetic, a muted identity designed not to offend, rather than to excite. It fit St. Louis. It was suffocating in SoCal. 

The 2020 rebrand, timed to the opening of SoFi Stadium, was a logo change that reflected a franchise announcing it had finally found its nerve. Gone was the navy entirely. In came “Rams Royal” blue and “Sol” gold, a sharpened ram-head with italicized typography pulled from the DNA of LA’s lowrider and car culture. It said: “This is our home and we intend to win here.” Two years later, they did exactly that, in thrilling fashion.

The Rams have seemingly always been contenders since heading back to Tinseltown and plastering their new logo all over one of America’s most iconic cities. While their Super Bowl defense was an absolute disaster, McVay’s side has reached the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, progressively tiptoeing their way closer to the Big Game. 

Last season, Matthew Stafford won the MVP award after leading the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 touchdowns. Puka Nacua led the NFL in receptions with 129 catches, ranking second in the league in receiving yards. Davante Adams, signed in the offseason, led the NFL in touchdown catches. The Rams finished 12-5, edging their way past both the Panthers and the Bears before coming unstuck against a Seattle Seahawks outfit that repeatedly got the better of them. 

But that hasn’t broken them. Stafford returns in 2026, and the core remains intact. And now SoFi hosts the Super Bowl — the same building where this franchise has already made history. 

What does it mean to be the team that did everything right? It means everyone is coming for you. It means +750 feels both exhilarating and like a target painted on your chest. The Rams aren’t chasing anything. They’re defending something harder to hold: the standard they set themselves.

Los Angeles Chargers — Finally Building Something Real

Go back to 2018. The StubHub Center — a soccer stadium that usually hosted the MLS’s Galaxy until the Chargers had crammed themselves into it while SoFi was still under construction. Visiting fans routinely outnumbered the home support. San Diego faithful turned up in “F*ck the Move” shirts. The Chargers had abandoned a city that adored them, returned to a city that already had a team, and unveiled a logo so strikingly similar to the LA Dodgers’ wordmark that the ridicule arrived before the season even started. 

The 2020 rebrand corrected course with conviction, proving just how important a new logo is to a team looking to forge a new identity. The navy keyline was stripped from the bolt entirely; the result — a clean, two-tone design in powder blue and sunshine gold, rooted in Southern California’s surf, skate, and car culture — was the visual identity the relocation had always needed. Sleeker. More assured. A declaration that this franchise had finally decided to commit to the city, rather than simply occupy it.

Justin Herbert was drafted shortly after the logo was updated and proceeded to deliver the same message on the field. NFL.com ranks him the fifth-best quarterback in the league — and in 2025, he may have been the most resilient, throwing for 3,886 yards and 26 touchdowns while rushing for 555 yards behind an offensive line that subjected him to the most pressure of any quarterback in the NFL. Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers went 11-6, went 5-1 in the AFC West, and built something that genuinely felt like the foundation of a contender.

Then came New England. A 16-3 Wild Card loss to a resurgent Patriots defense exposed exactly what Herbert has always lacked: protection. Time. A system built around his extraordinary talent.

The offseason answers were direct. Centre Tyler Biadasz and guard Cole Strange were signed to finally address the line. Former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel was hired as offensive coordinator in a bid to unlock something nobody has seen from Herbert yet. And the bookies clearly think that big things lie in wait.

At +1600, the Chargers aren’t the favorites for Super Bowl LXI, but they are also far higher in the betting charts than they were 12 months ago. Herbert is 26, and the infrastructure is being built around him at last. Still, the irony sharpens with every passing month: the Chargers helped fund a stadium where the Rams lifted a Lombardi, played second fiddle in their own building for years, and now arrive at the most consequential season in their LA tenure with everything finally aligned.