rams80

All the talk about how the Rams don't need the draft, etc. kind of ignores that one of the biggest components of their roster, Aaron Donald, was a home-grown 1st Round draft pick. Coincidentally, if everything hasn't fallen apart by the time he leaves, it will when he leaves.

Read that as Lake County and wondered if Zion had gotten snookered again.

1. St. Louis operated in as much bad faith with the relocation saga as the Rams did, but that wasn't germane to the lawsuit (to whit: somehow we went from "lease requires city to build a replacement stadium with civic money if it doesn't hit certain benchmarks" to "city will generously let Stan Kroenke spend his own money to build a cheap open air stadium in a blighted floodplain/swamp." 2. St. Louis did not spend nearly that much money/commit that much in civic assets on the stadium; the damages were calculated off of the losses of future civic revenue from having the Rams in town, which, St. Louis' attorneys did really well on the deception check they rolled at advantage. Anyway, Flores acted in good faith in trying to get a job, unlike both parties in the Rams vs. St. Louis, so let's drop this analogy.

Penn was still considered a top division school back then.

Perplexing add, America East is a bunch of bigger public schools with a mix of football and basketball only; Bryant is a small private school. Guess America East just felt like it didn't have a lot of other options.

Not sure I believe the “party line” here. I think it’s more likely MLB and the major league owners, in their arrogance, didn’t realize how poorly received literally every last bit of their remake of the minors would be and this is a fairly “painless” bone they can throw. Certainly the vibe when they renamed everything last year wasn’t that these were just placeholder names (or at least placeholders while they secured legacy league IPs).

Is that message "Look, here's another one"?

OK, gonna go after this general sentiment here point by point and ask what Stafford could have done REALISTICALLY. 1. Lobby ownership/management to make the team better: So, we're going to try to ask the Ford family to stop being the Ford family for a little bit, which strikes me as a rather futile gesture because it's impossible to break a track record as long as theirs. 2. Convince Free Agents to come over: (Glances at Ford Family) Show of hands. Who wants to take a relative pay cut to live in Detroit in a likely Quixotic attempt to build a winner. 3a. Demand a trade before you are even consigned to Detroit. Dude, we like Eli now because he's the funny one and he beat the Patriots twice, but Lordy, he had talent and the Manning bloodline and he got freaking dragged for telling the Chargers to piss off. 3b. Demand a trade earlier in his career. Yeah, um, we have a word for players who do that, it's called "malcontent" (or locker room cancer, or the real problem, or....) The Narrative does not like it when star players demand trades. 3c. Find a FA landing site as a comparatively unproven QB with a good supporting cast but cannot, for whatever reason, come by a cost-controlled QB on a rookie deal. Brady and Manning were able to move, but the general consensus was that Manning, coming off a missed season due to injury, was basically done and everyone hates Brady anyway except for Boston and the Brady-Belichick marriage had hit its expiration date. Stafford's kind of lucky George Allen's ghost possessed Les Snead once the Rams returned to LA so the Rams had a good supporting cast and no hope of getting a rookie QB. Point is, it's easy to say he could do more, it's harder to actually successfully do more in some situations.

Warner also had the exclusive services of a HOF RB/WR slashback, 2 HOF or should-be HOF receivers, and a freakish monster of a HOF LT in St. Louis. Stafford had....Calvin Johnson, which is better than nothing mind you but, let's consider what Kurt Warner had at his disposal in the glory days.

Cincy's O Line trying to start with him after that push of Burrow to send him out of bounds is arguably the moment the Rams front seven really awoke. Also, perhaps Donald commanding double and triple teams is why his name wasn't being called.

The Coyotes are the perfect loss leader to drag down the cap. Hopefully the NHL isn't dumb enough to have that written down for the next lockout/strike.

Because the NFL has decided that basically we're not going to talk about the AFL (aside from a few snickering references to the Heidi Game.)

Look, we put Warner in the hall for 5 or 6 really good years and a good story, so...

Kupp was deserving, Stafford wouldn't have been undeserving, I saw some line about how it's a shame you can't award it to the front seven of the Rams' defense, and that is true because they in their collectivity took over the second half.

I'd have cited some mix of injuries, the Rams O-Line not playing well, and Sean McVay killing drives trying to make Cam Akers happen. Anyway, you have to include that final drive in the ultimate calculus, especially since, again, Jared Goff could never have done that.

There is no way in hell Jared Goff manages that comeback, that alone makes the trade worth it. (Actually given how well the Cincy front was playing/how poorly the Rams front was playing it's even money he'd be curled up in the fetal position rocking himself and muttering about various terrors by the 4th quarter.)

Not for much longer though. Seriously, you want to know who was probably the most upset about the Rams' move? The fans of every other NFL team in middle America because they had just lost their cheap road trip to see their teams play in person. --------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, I'm excited, and happy for Stafford, and Donald, and OBJ, and Kupp, and Whitworth, and the rest of the team. I'll have tonight to think about when the entire kludge falls apart in a few years. (But no, seriously, this is probably going to be my all-time favorite team just from their playoff run alone: Ended the Pete Carroll/Russell Wilson era in Seattle, at minimum showed the cracks in Arizona, even if they didn't break that team for good, ENDED TOM BRADY, won the one that counted against San Fran, and oh yes, WON THE FREAKING SUPER BOWL.)

Vermeil also managed a down-to-the-studs rebuild of the Rams defense in three years; taking an absolutely atrocious unit and turning it into a Super Bowl champion. Fewer wins, but Denver wasn't nearly as bad a situation for Shanahan as the Rams or Eagles were when Vermeil stepped in.

I'm not sure the OVC is "take Hillsdale" desperate, because I don't think any group of D1 league school presidents would be up for dealing with Hillsdale on a regular basis.

Eh, contract money being equal, I'd take Jackson, but only because he's more proven a back.

I mean, the long term negative consequences for baseball's public perception from blowing up the minor league system, at the behest of people who got busted for cheating really blatantly, should put Manfred in front right there.

Rasputin's gonna recycle and repeat next year though.

Just did a check out of curiosity at this point, Super Bowl appearances from the 1995 season onward: New England Patriots 10 Denver Broncos 4 Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams 4 Pittsburgh Steelers 4 Green Bay Packers 3 New York Giants 3 Seattle Seahawks 3 Atlanta Falcons 2 Baltimore Ravens 2 Carolina Panthers 2 Indianapolis Colts 2 Kansas City Chiefs 2 Philadelphia Eagles 2 San Francisco 49ers 2 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2 Arizona Cardinals 1 Chicago Bears 1 Cincinnati Bengals 1 Dallas Cowboys 1 New Orleans Saints 1 Oakland Raiders 1 Tennessee Titans 1 Observations: Rams are a real feast or famine organization here: 2nd most appearances and a literal lost decade plus in the same era! LOLWTF. The Packers, by contrast, have had a first ballot HOF QB like every season in this period, and a relatively anarchic NFC, and have fewer appearances to show for it. Similarly the NFC West was a joke shop division for most of the 2000s/early 2010s and....has the most appearances of any NFC division and as many as the AFC East Patriots. Tom Brady vaccuuming up all those Super Bowls totes jobbed the rest of the AFC powers out of more appearances. Is this the part where we dunk on the Cowboys and Dan Snyder Era Washington? Yes, this is the part where we dunk on organizations that were responsible for 13 of the first 30 NFC appearances and have managed 0 since. (The Raiders' collapse is bad too, but more understandable)

Nobody, I repeat, NOBODY, including various St. Louis governmental bodies, acted in good faith in the St. Louis stadium negotiations. I'll just leave it at that. Just pulled up football reference to check. For my 27 seasons of fandom....9 playoff appearances and a WTF level 4 Super Bowl appearances.

Per wikipedia, 10 (they've won 7). LA Rams 1.0 were snakebit af in this round; they went 1-6; haven't lost during my time as a fan though.