I think it is such a credit to this board how civilized this discussion is for the most part. There are passionate fans on both sides of the issue, but the contributors and moderators have done an incredible job of making the discussion interesting without the vitriol that other boards experience. The contributors to this thread should be commended as well for resisting the urge to let frustration degrade the discussion. My hat's off to all of you.
I posted about 150 pages back, and for some reason I felt compelled to post again this morning. Maybe every 150 or so pages is my at bat. Here are some of my opinions, based on absolutely nothing more than what I have read here. No inside information, no particular insight or facts other than what I have read.
1. St. Louis has done nothing that would merit losing the Rams. They have built stadia, supported the team, and done everything that a municipality could reasonably do to keep the Rams in St. Louis. Fan support is as good as most cities, and better than many. During the millisecond the Rams were good, the Dome was the hottest ticket in town. Missourians need not feel defensive about this entire escapade, this is not and should not be on you. And the lease was not breached as other's have emphasized, the lease simply provided a fork in the road that the Rams and City abided.
2. I have lived in Southern California for my entire 53 years. I am the antithetical So Cal football fan, in that I am a true die hard and always have been. I can honestly say that none of my friends or associates are like me. Yes, in a region this large there are many like me, some of whom frequent this board, but they are also few and far between. Los Angeles isn't a great football market. It's a cliché, its simplistic, and its (in my experience) true. I wish it wasn't the case, because I would love to be part of a community that eats, drinks, and sleeps football like I do, but I don't see it. Maybe that would change with the NFL returning to Los Angeles, but it is very hard for me to see. And it is disappointing for me to acknowledge that.
3. Because I believe #2 to be true, and because I also believe that the NFL owners and the people who matter also recognize #2 to be true, I think that the only way the NFL returns to Los Angeles is with a single team. I think any combination of two teams in Los Angeles (Rams/Chargers, Rams/Raiders, Chargers/Raiders) would be unsuccessful for one team and catastrophic for the second team. Dropping two teams into LA is simply a recipe for disaster, no matter which teams they put here. People may disagree with me, and market studies may show otherwise, but that is my unsupported, off-the-hip opinion. And I think the NFL owners suspect if not know that this is the case.
4. If Stan Kroenke owned the Chargers and wanted to move the Chargers to Inglewood, I think this would have been a slam dunk. No uprooting of franchises, the Chargers just moving up the road like the Cowboys moving to Irving or the 49ers moving to Santa Clara. But the NFL doesn't have that choice, it has St. Louis versus SD/Oak. Many believe that the NFL prefers Carson to resolve both SD's and Oakland's downtrodden stadium issues. This seems like the "fair" thing to do. Nobody is shut out, Kroenke gets a new stadium, LA is filled by two teams, SD can still visit their Chargers up the road, and Oakland can follow the 49ers. Easy peasy. But the NFL is not a charity for inept owners. I am not sure the League sees the need to rescue the Chargers and the Raiders from their situation. Why give LA to Spanos and Davis - what have they done to earn it? And what kind of black eye would the NFL have if one of these teams fails in LA? I just don't see the NFL gifting LA to the Chargers and the Raiders simply because they couldn't make their own markets work.
5. The logical next question is, "What has Kroenke done to deserve LA?" I don't have an answer for that one. But if I were the owners, I think I would have more confidence in Stan Kroenke making LA work than the combination of Spanos and Davis. So this is what it comes down to for me. Will the League place a higher priority on doing what is "fair" (Carson), or will the emphasis be on ensuring that the return to LA is a success (Inglewood)?
6. There are several arguments that I hear proffered that I don't personally buy. Again, just my biased, uninformed opinion with nothing to back it up. A) "If such and such happens, it will set a bad precedent . . . " I don't think the owners will make this decision based on what might happen in the future. I think most would agree that LA is a rare exception to the rule. I don't think the NFL is seriously worried about other franchises uprooting based on what happens in LA. And they can always cite different factors for future decisions. B) "The NFL doesn't want to turn down St. L's public funding because it would discourage other cities from ponying up." Or, it would send a signal that the next city must do more. Desperate cities will always be willing to sell their souls to attract/keep an NFL team. C) "The NFL would not voluntarily give up the St. Louis market when it doesn't have to." It gave up LA, it can give up anything.
7. The last argument that I question is that is those fans on other boards who contend that Kroenke is masterminding this entire charade to get a deal out of St. Louis. My problem with this argument (without knowing if it is actually true or false) is that Joe Sixpack recognizes that this is merely a rouse, but governors, city officials, other NFL owners, the media, etc. are all intended to be buffaloed by this subterfuge. If Joe Sixpack can see that this is phony, how can they expect the rest of the world to buy into it?
Sorry for the length, I hope I did not offend anyone. I will see you all in 150 pages : )
