Excellent Article on the Rams' Culture

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Angry Ram

Captain RAmerica Original Rammer
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It's very long but it agrees with my way of thinking.

For the TL;DR folks: It's not as simple as making a FO member, coach, or player a scapegoat.

https://theringer.com/los-angeles-rams-sean-mcvay-stan-kroenke-63646f1f2df2.

Last week, Amazon bought Whole Foods, America’s healthiest mass-market grocery store. Before that, the company purchased the rights to document the Los Angeles return of the Rams, one of the NFL’s unhealthiest franchises, thus partnering the distributors of Manchester by the Sea with the Los Angeles Rams, making Amazon an expert on depressing content.

The crew at Amazon decided to name the documentary miniseries (which started with the Arizona Cardinals the previous season) All or Nothing, which sounds more like an old Frank Sinatra tune than an NFL doc. For Amazon, there won’t be anything classic about reviewing the Rams’ 4–12 season, which featured one of the worst offenses in modern NFL history. Rams fans know that the past 12 years have been extremely painful to watch, producing just 60 wins and never reaching nine in any one season. Playoffs? No chance — the Rams have finished third or worse in nine of the past 12 seasons. Wouldn’t you have liked to be a fly on the wall of the NFL Films editing room as they tried to make this 4–12 season watchable? Do you think Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos called down and wondered if his team could subtly insert Marshall Faulk, Kurt Warner, or even Casey Affleck into the show without anyone noticing? This is a project that challenges the creative juices of all involved.

How can a team that won a Super Bowl after the 1999 season continually reside in the bottom of the NFC West for so long? How can a team that has one of the league’s richest owners in Stan Kroenke be this awful? In the NFL it’s hard to become great, and it’s even harder to stay consistently bad — because of the rules, the league rewards poor play and promotes mediocrity.

So how did the Rams get here? Easy: They have no clue about how to build a culture. This column is not about bashing their former personnel directors, or former coaches, or blown draft picks. Going over each pick of the past 12 years would be worse than a day’s worth of root canals. But to blame general manager Les Snead or former GM Billy Devaney would be a waste of time. The GM’s job is impossible if the organization believes that players and coaches can succeed without a winning culture. And to blame Jeff Fisher and all the other former head coaches would be to take the easy way out. No coach, not Bill Belichick, not Bill Walsh, not Vince Lombardi, not George Halas or Don Shula could succeed in this culture.

A winning culture for all successful sports teams is grounded in a recognized mission and shared team goals. It places the good of the team above all else — winning matters more than personal goals or making money, and no one is bigger than the team. Everyone works toward one common purpose, guided by a leader with great knowledge.

But the NFL today doesn’t prize that method — in many cases, it focuses on hiring subcontractors as head coaches. Find a bright offensive or defensive mind and give him the title of head coach. Fresh-faced, inexperienced, eager, but often ill-equipped or unable to grab the reins. These hires are typically just in charge of their assistants, hampering the ability to create a total organizational culture.

Having one vision, one voice, one set of ideas is essential, and unless this comes directly from the owner, it must come from the head coach. When organizations use the subcontractor-head-coaching route, differing values muddy the culture. I call this the “Vienna Problem.” Vienna is the capital and largest city in Austria. When visiting Vienna, because of its geography and vast history, you can experience a range of culture from other countries: the coffee of the Turks, the music of the Germans, the pastry of the French, the brandy of the Armenians, and great art from all over the world. This confluence of experience makes Vienna a unique destination for tourists — it’s a fantastic place to visit.

But the NFL isn’t Vienna, and no country has ever dedicated a monument to a committee. This approach to culture-building might look good from time to time, but it has no chance to become sustainable. Successful teams in the NFL aren’t tourist destinations; they require unity from top to bottom.

To understand why the Rams never understood that culture mattered, one must travel back to the first time the team resided in Los Angeles, back before the mid-’90s, when Georgia Frontiere was the owner. Georgia, who always took at least two months to approve her photograph for the media guide, was far more concerned with making money than winning. She hired a brilliant former CPA/lawyer John Shaw to run her team, allowing him to make every decision, from the move to St. Louis to the next head coach to how many legal pads were needed in the office supply room. Shaw was extremely influential in the NFL league office, serving on several committees and operating as one of the league’s power brokers, even though he never actually owned a portion of the team. He was shrewd, he knew how to negotiate, and most of all he knew how to make money — lots of money. He was a modern-day Hyman Roth — carrying the title of president while working behind the scenes, never officially moving to St. Louis despite being in control of every dollar the team spent while there. He made clever trades, often receiving a boatload of picks for players like Eric Dickerson. But he often blew those picks because he never built the right culture.

Shaw hired and fired coaches without ever changing his structure in the front office because it never occurred to him anything was wrong. He had an Al Davis–like approach, as he tried to control the game from his chair on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, even after the Rams moved to Missouri. He saw the game like one of his spreadsheets, all assets and liabilities. He was calculating and bloodless in his dealings. “He doesn’t get emotional,” then–Buffalo Bills GM Terry Bledsoe said of Shaw, with whom he’d worked out the Vince Ferragamo trade in 1985.

Shaw’s formula was simple: If the team loses, fire the coach. Or fire the personnel director, even though that person’s decisions were typically marginalized and ignored. (Shaw relied on superscout Mike Giddings’s outside personnel service more than any of his directors.) Then find another coach — give him a limited amount of authority and hope he can turn it around. Since 1990, this predictable routine has been going on — and guess the results? In 26 years, the Rams have had just four 10-win seasons, going to the playoffs only five times — and one of the playoff appearances was the result of an eight-win season. The Super Bowl win after the 1999 season covered the sins and memories of the losing. But that was a complete aberration — the normal for the Rams has long been losing.
After more than a quarter-century, the lack of culture for the Rams has become the culture. New owner Stan Kroenke learned at Shaw’s lap as he forged his plan to become the team’s owner. In 1995, Kroenke bought a stake in the Rams, then two years after the death of Frontiere, he purchased the remaining portion, officially controlling the team. The passing of the torch from Frontiere to Kroenke was seamless. Only instead of Shaw running the team, Kevin Demoff — the son of powerful coach and player agent Marvin Demoff — assumed control as the chief operating officer. Like Shaw, Demoff is smart and business savvy, but has little understanding of life outside the Rams’ walls. Demoff was the lead man who brought Jeff Fisher to St. Louis — Fisher has been represented by Kevin’s father for his entire career. The Dolphins presented a huge roadblock in the Rams’ attempt to hire Fisher, but the Demoffs found a way — no one around the league doubted it’d happen. And the move was largely celebrated in St. Louis, as the Rams and Demoff hired the best available coach in 2012.

Five years later, many fans regard Fisher’s tenure as a high-priced disaster. Like the Shaw regime, the Rams made incredible trades, heisting several picks from Washington for RG3 in 2012, during this period. And like the Shaw regime, most of those picks failed to produce. Demoff has not been as effective playing the role created by Shaw, who would never have had the third-highest payroll in the league (and only four wins last season) without having his best player (Aaron Donald) signed to an extension. The Rams are a self-made four-win team with four of their 10 highest-paid players on second-contract extensions. And the worst contract in the NFL belongs to a player in Los Angeles: Tavon Austin. The wide receiver/return man has the second-richest deal on the team, a four-year, $42 million extension he earned for his under 10 yards per catch average. The Austin contract probably pisses off Aaron Donald, the Rams’ most essential player, more than anyone.

So after a 31–45–1 record, out went Fisher at the end of this season and the Rams began a search for his replacement. In doing so, they revealed how little they know of their historical problems. Because they drafted a young quarterback — the thus far woeful Jared Goff — that appears to be in need of major skill development, the Rams decided to hire a quarterback guru as their head coach. They’re oblivious to their losing culture, therefore they never view their problems in a global sense, instead thinking linearly. They reduce this incredible amount of losing to a simple solution — just get a good quarterback coach, and we’ll be fine. So in comes Sean McVay, an enthusiastic 31-year-old first-time head coach. When Bill Belichick was 31, he was the linebackers coach for the New York Giants. Pete Carroll? He was the defensive coordinator at NC State. Gregg Popovich? He was head coach of Division III Pomona-Pitzer. To say McVay is youthful is an understatement. Often we confuse enthusiasm with the ability to effect change, and right now the Rams under McVay have tremendous enthusiasm — but can they change?

It’s unclear if McVay been around long enough to understand what a winning culture entails. Right now, McVay is like Axl Rose stepping off the bus in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video — he’s new to this.

Will Sean McVay walk into defensive coordinator Wade Phillips’ office and demand he enact a specific game plan on D? Of course not. McVay is going to spend all his time working with the quarterback, generating that enthusiasm for the team — he’s going to leave Phillips alone. That might work in the short term, but it won’t work in the long run. When Phillips retires in a few short years, what happens then? McVay hired the celebrated Phillips exactly because he knows what he’s doing — as a first-time head coach, he’d be prudent to let Phillips lead the defense. There is a fine line between meddling and installing your culture. Phillips works for McVay, therefore, McVay must show the team he is in charge by using his intelligence on all sides of the ball, not displaying his title. It takes confidence in your football knowledge to do this. Does McVay have that knowledge? We’ll see.

Either way, ending the organization’s historic losing will require a historic turnaround. Fans believe it’s as simple as draft better, coach harder, be more enthusiastic. But the calcifying patterns of previous decades will be difficult to reverse. McVay might want to call Jeff Bezos and ask him about how he plans to redefine Whole Foods’ culture. As the great business guru Peter Drucker once said, “Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Bon appétit, Rams fans.
 

Memphis Ram

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https://theringer.com/los-angeles-rams-sean-mcvay-stan-kroenke-63646f1f2df2

Last week, Amazon bought Whole Foods, America’s healthiest mass-market grocery store. Before that, the company purchased the rights to document the Los Angeles return of the Rams, one of the NFL’s unhealthiest franchises, thus partnering the distributors of Manchester by the Sea with the Los Angeles Rams, making Amazon an expert on depressing content.

The crew at Amazon decided to name the documentary miniseries (which started with the Arizona Cardinals the previous season) All or Nothing, which sounds more like an old Frank Sinatra tune than an NFL doc. For Amazon, there won’t be anything classic about reviewing the Rams’ 4–12 season, which featured one of the worst offenses in modern NFL history. Rams fans know that the past 12 years have been extremely painful to watch, producing just 60 wins and never reaching nine in any one season. Playoffs? No chance — the Rams have finished third or worse in nine of the past 12 seasons. Wouldn’t you have liked to be a fly on the wall of the NFL Films editing room as they tried to make this 4–12 season watchable? Do you think Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos called down and wondered if his team could subtly insert Marshall Faulk, Kurt Warner, or even Casey Affleck into the show without anyone noticing? This is a project that challenges the creative juices of all involved.

How can a team that won a Super Bowl after the 1999 season continually reside in the bottom of the NFC West for so long? How can a team that has one of the league’s richest owners in Stan Kroenke be this awful? In the NFL it’s hard to become great, and it’s even harder to stay consistently bad — because of the rules, the league rewards poor play and promotes mediocrity.

So how did the Rams get here? Easy: They have no clue about how to build a culture. This column is not about bashing their former personnel directors, or former coaches, or blown draft picks. Going over each pick of the past 12 years would be worse than a day’s worth of root canals. But to blame general manager Les Snead or former GM Billy Devaney would be a waste of time. The GM’s job is impossible if the organization believes that players and coaches can succeed without a winning culture. And to blame Jeff Fisher and all the other former head coaches would be to take the easy way out. No coach, not Bill Belichick, not Bill Walsh, not Vince Lombardi, not George Halas or Don Shula could succeed in this culture.

A winning culture for all successful sports teams is grounded in a recognized mission and shared team goals. It places the good of the team above all else — winning matters more than personal goals or making money, and no one is bigger than the team. Everyone works toward one common purpose, guided by a leader with great knowledge.

But the NFL today doesn’t prize that method — in many cases, it focuses on hiring subcontractors as head coaches. Find a bright offensive or defensive mind and give him the title of head coach. Fresh-faced, inexperienced, eager, but often ill-equipped or unable to grab the reins. These hires are typically just in charge of their assistants, hampering the ability to create a total organizational culture.

Having one vision, one voice, one set of ideas is essential, and unless this comes directly from the owner, it must come from the head coach. When organizations use the subcontractor-head-coaching route, differing values muddy the culture. I call this the “Vienna Problem.” Vienna is the capital and largest city in Austria. When visiting Vienna, because of its geography and vast history, you can experience a range of culture from other countries: the coffee of the Turks, the music of the Germans, the pastry of the French, the brandy of the Armenians, and great art from all over the world. This confluence of experience makes Vienna a unique destination for tourists — it’s a fantastic place to visit.

But the NFL isn’t Vienna, and no country has ever dedicated a monument to a committee. This approach to culture-building might look good from time to time, but it has no chance to become sustainable. Successful teams in the NFL aren’t tourist destinations; they require unity from top to bottom.

To understand why the Rams never understood that culture mattered, one must travel back to the first time the team resided in Los Angeles, back before the mid-’90s, when Georgia Frontiere was the owner. Georgia, who always took at least two months to approve her photograph for the media guide, was far more concerned with making money than winning. She hired a brilliant former CPA/lawyer John Shaw to run her team, allowing him to make every decision, from the move to St. Louis to the next head coach to how many legal pads were needed in the office supply room. Shaw was extremely influential in the NFL league office, serving on several committees and operating as one of the league’s power brokers, even though he never actually owned a portion of the team. He was shrewd, he knew how to negotiate, and most of all he knew how to make money — lots of money. He was a modern-day Hyman Roth — carrying the title of president while working behind the scenes, never officially moving to St. Louis despite being in control of every dollar the team spent while there. He made clever trades, often receiving a boatload of picks for players like Eric Dickerson. But he often blew those picks because he never built the right culture.

Shaw hired and fired coaches without ever changing his structure in the front office because it never occurred to him anything was wrong. He had an Al Davis–like approach, as he tried to control the game from his chair on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, even after the Rams moved to Missouri. He saw the game like one of his spreadsheets, all assets and liabilities. He was calculating and bloodless in his dealings. “He doesn’t get emotional,” then–Buffalo Bills GM Terry Bledsoe said of Shaw, with whom he’d worked out the Vince Ferragamo trade in 1985.

Shaw’s formula was simple: If the team loses, fire the coach. Or fire the personnel director, even though that person’s decisions were typically marginalized and ignored. (Shaw relied on superscout Mike Giddings’s outside personnel service more than any of his directors.) Then find another coach — give him a limited amount of authority and hope he can turn it around. Since 1990, this predictable routine has been going on — and guess the results? In 26 years, the Rams have had just four 10-win seasons, going to the playoffs only five times — and one of the playoff appearances was the result of an eight-win season. The Super Bowl win after the 1999 season covered the sins and memories of the losing. But that was a complete aberration — the normal for the Rams has long been losing.


0*B_-e5t4U4QqZX81o.

After more than a quarter-century, the lack of culture for the Rams has become the culture. New owner Stan Kroenke learned at Shaw’s lap as he forged his plan to become the team’s owner. In 1995, Kroenke bought a stake in the Rams, then two years after the death of Frontiere, he purchased the remaining portion, officially controlling the team. The passing of the torch from Frontiere to Kroenke was seamless. Only instead of Shaw running the team, Kevin Demoff — the son of powerful coach and player agent Marvin Demoff — assumed control as the chief operating officer. Like Shaw, Demoff is smart and business savvy, but has little understanding of life outside the Rams’ walls. Demoff was the lead man who brought Jeff Fisher to St. Louis — Fisher has been represented by Kevin’s father for his entire career. The Dolphins presented a huge roadblock in the Rams’ attempt to hire Fisher, but the Demoffs found a way — no one around the league doubted it’d happen. And the move was largely celebrated in St. Louis, as the Rams and Demoff hired the best available coach in 2012.

Five years later, many fans regard Fisher’s tenure as a high-priced disaster. Like the Shaw regime, the Rams made incredible trades, heisting several picks from Washington for RG3 in 2012, during this period. And like the Shaw regime, most of those picks failed to produce. Demoff has not been as effective playing the role created by Shaw, who would never have had the third-highest payroll in the league (and only four wins last season) without having his best player (Aaron Donald) signed to an extension. The Rams are a self-made four-win team with four of their 10 highest-paid players on second-contract extensions. And the worst contract in the NFL belongs to a player in Los Angeles: Tavon Austin. The wide receiver/return man has the second-richest deal on the team, a four-year, $42 million extension he earned for his under 10 yards per catch average. The Austin contract probably pisses off Aaron Donald, the Rams’ most essential player, more than anyone.

So after a 31–45–1 record, out went Fisher at the end of this season and the Rams began a search for his replacement. In doing so, they revealed how little they know of their historical problems. Because they drafted a young quarterback — the thus far woeful Jared Goff — that appears to be in need of major skill development, the Rams decided to hire a quarterback guru as their head coach. They’re oblivious to their losing culture, therefore they never view their problems in a global sense, instead thinking linearly. They reduce this incredible amount of losing to a simple solution — just get a good quarterback coach, and we’ll be fine. So in comes Sean McVay, an enthusiastic 31-year-old first-time head coach. When Bill Belichick was 31, he was the linebackers coach for the New York Giants. Pete Carroll? He was the defensive coordinator at NC State. Gregg Popovich? He was head coach of Division III Pomona-Pitzer. To say McVay is youthful is an understatement. Often we confuse enthusiasm with the ability to effect change, and right now the Rams under McVay have tremendous enthusiasm — but can they change?

It’s unclear if McVay been around long enough to understand what a winning culture entails. Right now, McVay is like Axl Rose stepping off the bus in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video — he’s new to this.

Will Sean McVay walk into defensive coordinator Wade Phillips’ office and demand he enact a specific game plan on D? Of course not. McVay is going to spend all his time working with the quarterback, generating that enthusiasm for the team — he’s going to leave Phillips alone. That might work in the short term, but it won’t work in the long run. When Phillips retires in a few short years, what happens then? McVay hired the celebrated Phillips exactly because he knows what he’s doing — as a first-time head coach, he’d be prudent to let Phillips lead the defense. There is a fine line between meddling and installing your culture. Phillips works for McVay, therefore, McVay must show the team he is in charge by using his intelligence on all sides of the ball, not displaying his title. It takes confidence in your football knowledge to do this. Does McVay have that knowledge? We’ll see.

Either way, ending the organization’s historic losing will require a historic turnaround. Fans believe it’s as simple as draft better, coach harder, be more enthusiastic. But the calcifying patterns of previous decades will be difficult to reverse. McVay might want to call Jeff Bezos and ask him about how he plans to redefine Whole Foods’ culture. As the great business guru Peter Drucker once said, “Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Bon appétit, Rams fans.
 

CGI_Ram

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I am glad to see the Rams emphasize culture. It REALLY is the key to success in any business... and it's hard work. It has to be worked every day and kept front and center.

Their biggest challenge will be once good progress has been made, to continue to work it and never think the work is done.
 

Faceplant

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Brutal, but hard to argue with. It almost sounds like Lombardi is a long suffering rams fan, haha.
 

Loyal

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TLDR.

Past doesn't indicate future. Just because the last decade or so sucked, doesn't mean this staff/team will fail. THIS team is different than every other team before it, even if there are some returning players
1998 (4-12) ----> 1999 (13-3) Super Bowl 34

2016 (4-12) -----> 2017 (9-7), Wild Card

See? I can get conservative.:sneak:
 

DaveFan'51

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IF Lombardi is so Brilliant, Why could he not turn the Browns around!!?! And why is he not still with them!!?!
 

ScotsRam

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I actually think it's spot on. Completely agree with everything in it. That doesn't mean McVay can't succeed but it's about damn time the Rams showed us something.

The part about the Austin contract is completely right as well. I know it's an unpopular view but I'd trade him ASAP if I was a new HC with this squad.
 

tempests

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IF Lombardi is so Brilliant, Why could he not turn the Browns around!!?! And why is he not still with them!!?!

I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say he blames it on "culture".

Lombardi said:
The GM’s job is impossible if the organization believes that players and coaches can succeed without a winning culture

Well, what do you know.
 
Last edited:

ramfan46

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Look back on how the players and coaches would celebrate a win over Seattle or Az. They were pumped up like they won a playoff game instead of business as usual. They would always lay an egg after a big win under Fisher, lacked consistency. McVay and Co. need to have these guys ready every day. If the players can't handle that part, adios.
 

Corbin

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I agree with everything except that Vince Lombardi and Co. wouldn't be able to turn around the Rams losing culture? BS! If that's the case how the hell did Dick Vermeil do it? Magic? No, and the answer to that question is hard work. Ohhh you conveniently left that out didn't you?

Fucking stupid over zealous jack ass who changed his name to Lombardi because he had to steal someone else's name to make everybody thinks he knows football.
 

Faceplant

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Yep. this was posted last night. Brutal, but fair.
 

shaunpinney

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hmmm - I'm going to have to disagree with this article - I get the whole scapegoat thing and the blame culture and the losing culture

just get a good quarterback coach, and we’ll be fine

And I see where this is true, but I think that was part of the Fisher Culture. I believe that Demoff & Kronke have managed to pull off a winning combination in the coaching team, and I have to commend them on making wholesale changes. I know McVay is the polar opposite of Fisher, but he's not naïve either. Phillips was brought in to relieve the pressure off him a bit on the Defensive side of the ball, but I've read plenty of evidence that he does understand that side of the ball too, there's that anecdote from his playing days where he changed the play because he could read the D, and I believe that if he walked into Phillips' office and asked for changes to certain plays Phillips would accept that, he's also commented on that McVay is the boss - there is too much respect between the coaches (from what I can see).

And what I can see the culture does seem to be changing, there is less moping about, the players look to be in top fitness, and enjoying it - and with Rath reminding them that they are privileged to be doing what they're doing, the guys seem hungry to play.

I do think that you can change a culture of an organisation quickly - you cut out the freeloaders, the underachievers and the ones stuck in their ways and you'll see a different culture grow.
 

jrry32

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If you want an example of why this is BS, look at the Colts. They are run by Jim Irsay, who is a buffoon. The Colts, in the 20 years before Peyton Manning, had 0 10+ win seasons, 5 winning seasons, and only 3 playoff appearances. In the 19 years after Manning was drafted (followed by Andrew Luck), the Colts have 14 winning seasons, 14 10+ win seasons, 14 playoff appearances, and only 3 losing seasons.

Jim Irsay is still Jim Irsay. What changed the culture? Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. Tony Dungy also helped.

What will change the culture here? The right coaches, the right talent, and winning. I disagree with Lombardi's assertion that culture creates winning. Winning often creates culture. The two do go hand-in-hand to some degree, but culture doesn't attach itself to an organization like some inescapable stench. The people in charge create the culture. McVay and co. will have a different culture than Fisher and co. Fisher and co. had a different culture than the people before them.

Each coach has a distinctive culture. If there's something to be learned from years of following the NFL, there isn't a successful or unsuccessful type of culture. It all depends on the people running the team and the talent. Pete Carroll lets the inmates run the asylum. Tom Coughlin was known for being a strict disciplinarian. Both guys have Super Bowl rings.

The Rams have sucked for such a long time because we have made a lot of bad organizational decisions, not because of culture.
 

shaunpinney

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What will change the culture here? The right coaches, the right talent, and winning. I disagree with Lombardi's assertion that culture creates winning. Winning often creates culture.

Apart from the right coaches (which I think we have in place right now) I do think that players like Cooper Kupp, Hekker etc who have bucketfulls of energy and enthusiasm can change an organisations culture - create a 'team' and when you have that team-wide passion, that will feed off a win, you can create that winning culture. But winning games, creates a winning team, which creates a winning culture. at the moment the Rams are the whipping boys of the NFL - to change this we must win games, and I'm sure it will give the players confidence in which they will continue to win and shut the journalists up!
 

Noregar

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This drivel is coming from the former Cleveland Browns GM for 2013-2014. His drafts were bad in Cleveland and Cleveland is a team IMO that is the poster child for a dysfunctional NFL franchise. I was never a fan of Shaw and I found a few of his observations about Shaw interesting but overall it is just a BS opinion piece by a failed NFL GM.
 

LACHAMP46

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To understand why the Rams never understood that culture mattered, one must travel back to the first time the team resided in Los Angeles, back before the mid-’90s, when Georgia Frontiere was the owner. Georgia, who always took at least two months to approve her photograph for the media guide, was far more concerned with making money than winning. She hired a brilliant former CPA/lawyer John Shaw to run her team, allowing him to make every decision, from the move to St. Louis to the next head coach to how many legal pads were needed in the office supply room. Shaw was extremely influential in the NFL league office, serving on several committees and operating as one of the league’s power brokers, even though he never actually owned a portion of the team. He was shrewd, he knew how to negotiate, and most of all he knew how to make money — lots of money.
I could've sworn that moving initially made the team a little money, but overall the team lost value......and huge amounts of money by taking the team outta California/Anaheim/LA??? I'm sure Shaw/Georgia's family still own a small portion of the team.....