Players and coaches in Super Bowl LVI with Illinois connections

With 53 active players, plus a dozen practice squad members, not to mention coaching staffs of more than a dozen people, there were bound to be some Illinois natives playing in Super Bowl LVI.

Three Illinois natives will likely see the playing field Sunday when the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Another will roam the sidelines as a coach. There is also one former Bears player who has made major contributions for the Rams’ defense.

Here’s a long list of players and coaches participating in the Super Bowl who either grew up in Illinois, played or coached college football in Illinois, or previously played or coached for the Bears.

The players

Brian Allen, Rams, C, No. 55

Allen grew up in Hinsdale and was a dominant three-sport athlete at Hinsdale Central. He started for three years on the varsity football team for coach Rich Tarka. Allen was an all-state performer in Class 8A as a senior in 2013. He was a four-time state medalist in wrestling, including a Class 3A state championship at 285 pounds in 2013. He won a state championship in the shot put in 2013. His older brother, Jack, played several seasons in the NFL and his younger brother, Matt, just finished his playing career at Michigan State. All three Allen brothers played at Michigan State.

The Rams drafted Brian Allen with a fourth round pick in 2018. When the Rams went to the Super Bowl in 2018, they used Allen mostly on special teams. He played two snaps in Super Bowl LIII. This season, he started 16 games for the Rams and has started in all three postseason games.

David Edwards, Rams, LG, No. 73

Edwards played quarterback at Downers Grove North. He weighed 215 pounds in high school and was also a standout center on the basketball team. He played college football at Wisconsin and started out as a tight end before bulking up and moving to the offensive line. Edwards started 31 games at right tackle over the course of his college career. His cousin, Garrett Edwards, played defensive back at Illinois, while his great uncle, Ron Leoni, also played football for the Illini.

The Rams drafted Edwards in the fifth round of the 2019 draft. Edwards started all 17 regular season games and all three postseason games this season. Between Allen and Edwards, the Rams offensive line has a distinct Illinois flavor.

Leonard Floyd, Rams, OLB, No. 54

The Bears drafted Floyd with the ninth overall draft pick in 2016 out of Georgia, trading an additional fourth-round draft pick in order to move up two spots and grab Floyd. The Georgia native played four seasons for the Bears, starting 54 games. As a pass rusher, Floyd never had more than seven sacks in any one season with the Bears. The team let him walk in free agency after the 2019 season. Since joining the Rams, Floyd had 10.5 sacks in 2020 and 9.5 in 2021.

Floyd had a sack against his former team when the Bears visited SoFi Stadium in 2020.

Mike Thomas, Bengals, WR, No. 80

Thomas, 27, grew up on the south side of Chicago and played at DuSable High School in Bronzeville. His trip to the NFL took a unique route. He spent one season at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn in 2012 before transferring to Dodge City Community College in Kansas in 2013. From there, he transferred to FBS Division I Southern Mississippi, where he played from 2014-16.

The Rams drafted Thomas in the sixth round in 2016. He injured his groin in the 2018 season opener and spent the rest of the season on injured reserve while the Rams made a run to Super Bowl LIII. After his rookie contract expired, Thomas signed with the Bengals as a free agent in March 2020.

In 2021, he appeared in 12 games during the regular season (including five receptions for 53 yards) and has played in all three postseason games. Thomas sees most of his playing time on special teams. He played 67% of special teams snaps during the AFC championship game against Kansas City.

The rest

Rams wide receiver Ben Skowronek grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and played college football at Northwestern from 2016-19 before transferring to Notre Dame for one season in 2020. Practice squad tight end Earnest Brown IV also played at Northwestern. The Rams drafted Brown with a fifth-round pick in 2021. He has not appeared in any games this season.

The Bears briefly signed Bengals linebacker Keandre Jones as an undrafted rookie in 2020. Jones didn’t make the 53-man roster out of training camp and signed with the Benglas practice squad shortly after.

On the Bengals’ practice squad, linebacker Austin Calitro was with the Bears during training camp last summer but was released in August. Defensive lineman Damion Square was briefly on the Bears’ practice squad last fall. Calitro has not been in uniform during the postseason, while Square has appeared in two of three postseason games.

The coaches

Kevin Carberry, Rams offensive line coach

Rams offensive line coach Kevin Carberry grew up in Oak Lawn and attended St. Rita in Chicago. He played on the defensive line at Ohio University in the Mid-American Conference, graduating in 2005. After college, he bounced around professionally, trying out for the Cleveland Browns and spending the 2006 season on the Detroit Lions’ practice squad. He played for the Berlin Thunder of NFL Europe during the following spring and spent training camp 2007 with the Carolina Panthers. He then spent time in the Arena Football League with the New York Dragons (2007) and the Philadelphia Soul (2008).

Carberry’s coaching career began in Illinois at the high school level at St. Ignatius in Chicago during the 2007 and 2008 seasons. He coached during the arena league offseason. He went to Kansas in 2009 to be a graduate assistant and later coached defensive ends at Stephen F. Austin in 2012-13. Carberry made the jump to the NFL in 2014 as an offensive assistant with the Cowboys. After a stint in Washington (2016-17) as the assistant offensive line coach, he went to Stanford as the line coach and run game coordinator (2018-20). This is his first season as offensive line coach in Los Angeles under Sean McVay.

The rest

Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan was born in Champaign, Illinois, when his father, longtime NFL coach Bill Callahan, was an assistant coach at the University of Illinois. Brian Callahan, who was born in 1984, did not live in Illinois long. His father left Champaign after the 1986 season. Brian Callahan went to high school in California.

Cincinnati’s strength and conditioning coach Joey Boese spent three seasons (2016-18) as the head football strength and conditioning coach at Illinois under head coach Lovie Smith. Boese was born in Chicago but raised in California. Both his assistant strength and conditioning coaches, Todd Hunt and Garrett Swanson, also worked at Illinois prior to joining the Bengals.

For the Rams, special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis was the special teams coordinator and assistant head coach with the Bears under head coach Marc Trestman from 2013-14. Rams assistant special teams coach Dwayne Stukes served as the assistant special teams coordinator with DeCamillis in Chicago and followed him to Los Angeles.