When I was growing up in central PA during the 70’s, the Rams weren’t highly regarded by a lot of people. I’m sure this was mostly due to the fact that we never got to see them play. On those rare occasions when we did get to see them they were usually losing a playoff game. The perception was they couldn’t win big games, so they garnered little respect. People had the impression that the Rams padded their record against the weaklings in their division (Falcons, 49’ers and Saints) and then were exposed in the playoffs. Of course,
1) Just like in the 80’s where you could predict the Lakers and Celtics would be in the the NBA finals, you could easily predict the divisional winners in the 1970’s NFL
2) The Rams had weaklings in the divsion, but so did the Vikings, and the Cowboys, as did the Raiders, the Steelers, and the Dolphins….. Folks tend to forget that there was football in Green Bay after Bart Starr and before Brett Farve, and it wasn’t very good. Bob Avelinni was the best QB the Bears had before Jim McMahon, and the most famous QB the Lions had during the 70’s was Alan Alda and who could forget the winless Bucs……… Same goes for the Giants and Eagles in the NFC East, Same with the Patriots, Colts, and Jets in the AFC East, same with the Oilers, Browns and Bengals in the AFC Central…..they were not very good teams for the majority of the 1970’s…
Sure, every once in a while, Air Coryell would work in STL and SD, but Tommy Prothro in SD and Gene Stallings in STL were not exactly Tom Landry…..