It depends on whether the league believes in its own rules, and how much, and whether or not they are willing to live with the obvious “SK is an exception” thing. In other words, whether or not they will countenance obvious hypocrisy in the name of expedience for something they like.

yeah. i think they’ll learn to live with it.

i’m still on the boras bandwagon. keep continuity. and if it’s really true. that he’s regarded as a bright offensive mind. then go for it. instead of playing the oc musical chairs game.

well. we’re going to disagree.

i really believe the nfl will look the other way if it isn’t approved. in fact. kroenke would probably rather they not approve it.

normally i’d agree with you. and if this was a move to any other city. i’d believe it. but this is a move to los angeles. if it’s purely for vanity. if it’s just to squeeze a couple more million dollars a year out of us. if it’s to have superbowls. pro bowls. the draft. the combine. whatever.

i believe the nfl wants more of a presence in los angeles. yeah. it’s just a guess. but it makes sense to me. does it suck in a lot of ways. of course it does.

but yes. i would bet that the nfl would be willing to ignore its own rules just to do this.

if this was a move to san antonio. sure they’d enforce the rules hard. in this case, they won’t. and law enforcement will bend the rules if it favors them. i don’t think that’s impossible to imagine.

wv wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>zn wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>InvaderRam wrote:</div>
you don’t get numerous proposals of stadium projects because they weren’t serious about it.

But you also didn’t get stadiums.

So how serious were they.

If you are an NFL Owner, who votes,
what is the Downside to letting Stan take the team
away from St.Louis and bring it back to Los Angeles ?

I’m trying to understand the possible downsides,
from the point of view of various Owners.

Whats the downside? Why would owners vote against it?

I wonder if there is a group of owners that dont
care one way or the other.

w
v

they could lose leverage when negotiating with their own cities.

jerry jones. kraft. i bet they don’t care. not sure about others. new york owners? the bears? washington? i guess wouldn’t care.

zn wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>InvaderRam wrote:</div>
you don’t get numerous proposals of stadium projects because they weren’t serious about it.

But you also didn’t get stadiums.

So how serious were they.

i think that in the case of aeg i believe they wanted part ownership. i don’t think any owner was willing to give that up or they struck a deal with their home city making it more financially beneficial to them to stay. ok. i don’t know if this is actually true so blast away if i’m wrong but that was my impression.

zn wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>InvaderRam wrote:</div>
don’t see why the nfl would be against this move.

Well the argument for them possibly being against it is to be found in their own relocation rules, which they put in place as a response to precisely this kind of thing (Cleveland to Baltimore, Baltimore to IND etc.) They didn’t want that then…meaning, not teams moving, but teams moving whenever ever they felt like it without a league-wide approval process etc.

Now if they violate their own rules they are setting it up to encourage more teams to do the same, which is precisely what they set out to avoid.

In terms of being in LA, in a lot of ways, having no team in LA is just as viable for the league as a whole. It means every NFL fan in LA watches NFL games every Sunday, just lots of different games. Having a team there doesn’t change that. It doesn’t increase revenue one bit. It might be nice to have a showy stadium in LA…I think that’s hopelessly superficial myself and kind of like wishing for the wrong things…but then that has to balance with whether or not they prize their own rules.

Now it’s clear why Stan wants to move. His one abiding concern is “increasing value” which trumps absolutely everything else. Personally I don’t admire those characteristics. In fact I think they’re socio-pathic. (Really, I do.) So we know why Stan needs to own the biggest and brightest. But that does not automatically mean everyone in the league prizes that over other considerations. I might mean that in the long run…but it’s not a slamdunk that it means that.

So there’s lots to unfold yet here, and lots to talk about still.

i think the nfl does want a team in los angeles. they want a stadium there. they want superbowls there. they just didn’t see a fit before. i think in the end they’ll see the fit here. an owner with the ability to finance a state of the art facility. and they’ll bend the rules to get that in this case. does it open it up for other teams to move? sure. but my guess is they’ll do it anyway.

and yes it could be considered sociopathic. but i would say the same is true for most of the owners as well as goodell.

i’m conflicted.

the selfish part of me wants them to move but every other part of me would like them to stay in st louis.

either way i’ll be watching them every sunday one way or another.

it’s going to be the jaguars. the owner has ties to st louis. the nfl wants to raise its profile and a move from jacksonville to st louis does that. good faith by peacock and a solid fan base will go a long way in the nfl recognizing and rewarding the city’s efforts.

this next year is going to be very painful. either way. i wonder how ugly it gets.

i agree. i’d like to see them hire cignetti. i don’t know if he’d change the scheme. but he’s at least be familiar with the personnel which would give him a leg up on any coordinator they’d bring from the outside.

Zooey wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>InvaderRam wrote:</div>
in this instance. they can control the flow of information. the only people who would actually have to be in the know is kroenke, goodell, and some select owners with influence. and no physical evidence to speak of and all just people talking.

i mean the only reason we know kroenke is building a stadium is because he released the information. and all this talk about meetings with the inglewood mayor are just hearsay.

ok. i’m being stupid and suspicious.

First of all, I’m not sure specifically what “in the know” means. If that means “knows that the fix is in for moving,” then that just isn’t true. The NFL has rules for relocation that have been established by the owners. They made those rules so that the interests of the NFL as a whole can be protected, and so that relocation can be fully vetted, and all concerns considered. The proposals are carefully considered by the Finance Committee. They consider the proposal, look deeply at the financing, and look at what it means in terms of competitive balance, potential re-alignment, and, of course, cash flow. In this case, they will do a full analysis of the St. Louis proposal as well. Every single team is a billion dollar corporation with a slew of smart guys in suits who will look very carefully at what a relocation means to THEM, and their bottom line. (And, btw, I agree with something zn said early in the thread; I don’t think a move to LA benefits the league much. Not financially anyway. Mostly it provides a glamour site in a glamour town and a nice place for Super Bowls, but that’s it. It doesn’t increase revenue for the other 31 teams in any significant way).

This isn’t something that can just breezily be passed through without anyone much noticing. Stan needs votes from 24 teams. There’s a VOTE. The owners don’t just wake up in the morning, snap open their papers, and find out that an NFL team has moved. The more I think about, the more amazed I am that I even gave a moment’s consideration to the possibility that “the fix is in.” It can’t be. Stan’s proposal was just released the other day, and we haven’t seen the Peacock proposal. Even if you assume that the NFL people have been kept in the pipeline on developments of each of these proposals, and already have a good idea what they look like, the close examination and hard questions have not been begun – unless you think 32 owners have already studied this, argued about, voted on it, and just decided not to tell anybody publicly because they prefer to play charades to no advantage whatsoever.

Nope. I am starting to think there is no choice but to believe our eyes here. Kroenke really did that. Now, he may have let the other owners know in advance he was going to do that. But that still isn’t a fix even if he did. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was a surprise. We don’t know yet.

But I still don’t think this is brash, impulsive behavior. I’m convinced Kroenke is not going Rambo here. He’s going Bobby Fischer. He’s playing chess, imo, even if it looks like wild west cowboy behavior. He released his plan deliberately, and timed it with purpose.

I think he released his plan when he did because now the Peacock proposal will be compared to his proposal. Had Peacock’s proposal come out first, most people would be looking at its virtues. “Nice new stadium, wow, isn’t that pretty? Some commercial development…my, what a concept. Good deal. That could work!”

If Kroenke’s proposal followed that, it would just look like an attempt to One-Up a solid plan. A few more seats, a few more retail spaces, whatever.

Coming out after Kroenke’s proposal, Peacock’s is likely to be examined for its shortcomings in comparison to his. It will be considered a weaker version. Its unveiling is more likely to disappoint. Especially if it involves public money.

That’s my guess.

I’m looking forward to Friday.

Zooey wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>InvaderRam wrote:</div>
in this instance. they can control the flow of information. the only people who would actually have to be in the know is kroenke, goodell, and some select owners with influence. and no physical evidence to speak of and all just people talking.

i mean the only reason we know kroenke is building a stadium is because he released the information. and all this talk about meetings with the inglewood mayor are just hearsay.

ok. i’m being stupid and suspicious.

First of all, I’m not sure specifically what “in the know” means. If that means “knows that the fix is in for moving,” then that just isn’t true. The NFL has rules for relocation that have been established by the owners. They made those rules so that the interests of the NFL as a whole can be protected, and so that relocation can be fully vetted, and all concerns considered. The proposals are carefully considered by the Finance Committee. They consider the proposal, look deeply at the financing, and look at what it means in terms of competitive balance, potential re-alignment, and, of course, cash flow. In this case, they will do a full analysis of the St. Louis proposal as well. Every single team is a billion dollar corporation with a slew of smart guys in suits who will look very carefully at what a relocation means to THEM, and their bottom line. (And, btw, I agree with something zn said early in the thread; I don’t think a move to LA benefits the league much. Not financially anyway. Mostly it provides a glamour site in a glamour town and a nice place for Super Bowls, but that’s it. It doesn’t increase revenue for the other 31 teams in any significant way).

This isn’t something that can just breezily be passed through without anyone much noticing. Stan needs votes from 24 teams. There’s a VOTE. The owners don’t just wake up in the morning, snap open their papers, and find out that an NFL team has moved. The more I think about, the more amazed I am that I even gave a moment’s consideration to the possibility that “the fix is in.” It can’t be. Stan’s proposal was just released the other day, and we haven’t seen the Peacock proposal. Even if you assume that the NFL people have been kept in the pipeline on developments of each of these proposals, and already have a good idea what they look like, the close examination and hard questions have not been begun – unless you think 32 owners have already studied this, argued about, voted on it, and just decided not to tell anybody publicly because they prefer to play charades to no advantage whatsoever.

Nope. I am starting to think there is no choice but to believe our eyes here. Kroenke really did that. Now, he may have let the other owners know in advance he was going to do that. But that still isn’t a fix even if he did. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was a surprise. We don’t know yet.

But I still don’t think this is brash, impulsive behavior. I’m convinced Kroenke is not going Rambo here. He’s going Bobby Fischer. He’s playing chess, imo, even if it looks like wild west cowboy behavior. He released his plan deliberately, and timed it with purpose.

I think he released his plan when he did because now the Peacock proposal will be compared to his proposal. Had Peacock’s proposal come out first, most people would be looking at its virtues. “Nice new stadium, wow, isn’t that pretty? Some commercial development…my, what a concept. Good deal. That could work!”

If Kroenke’s proposal followed that, it would just look like an attempt to One-Up a solid plan. A few more seats, a few more retail spaces, whatever.

Coming out after Kroenke’s proposal, Peacock’s is likely to be examined for its shortcomings in comparison to his. It will be considered a weaker version. Its unveiling is more likely to disappoint. Especially if it involves public money.

That’s my guess.

I’m looking forward to Friday.

i think you make a lot of sense. i’m just being stupid really. but yeah. what you say makes a lot of sense.

he wanted to move south.

not west.

hahahaha!

sorry. i just had to say that.

ok. one other thing. does st. louis even want to play with an owner who clearly does not want to stay there?

other owners have threatened to move but always seemed to make an attempt at working out things with the city.

but absolutely nothing from stan. the article below is stuff we’ve already known about. but in other cases where the team ended up staying. were communication lines this broken?

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12133304/city-leaders-say-st-louis-rams-owner-return-our-calls

St. Louis mayor: We’re getting hint

ST. LOUIS — City officials said Wednesday that the owner of the Rams isn’t returning their calls, so they plan to work directly with the NFL on efforts to keep a team — any team — in St. Louis amid speculation the Rams are headed back to Los Angeles.

Rams billionaire owner Stan Kroenke is part of a joint venture that announced plans Monday for an 80,000-seat stadium in the Los Angeles suburbs, a move that could soon return the NFL to the nation’s second-largest market and the home of the Rams from 1946 until they moved to St. Louis in 1995. The move would have to wait at least a year; the NFL has said no team moves would be allowed in 2015.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon isn’t giving up on the Rams.

“St. Louis is an NFL city,” Nixon said Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s too late to keep the Rams.”

But city leaders are hedging their bets, saying the plan now is to work directly with the NFL, not the Rams. The change in philosophy is due in part to the fact that Kroenke won’t take calls from Mayor Francis Slay or other city leaders, said Maggie Crane, Slay’s spokeswoman.

“He hasn’t responded, he hasn’t called back, he hasn’t done anything,” Crane said of Kroenke.

“After a while, you sort of get the hint,” said Jeff Rainford, the mayor’s chief of staff.

Messages left Wednesday at Kroenke’s office were not returned. A Rams spokesman declined comment.

“The NFL can make money in St. Louis,” Rainford said. “It may end up being the Rams with this owner, the Rams with a different owner, a different team with a different owner.”

Rainford said St. Louis can make a compelling argument to remain an NFL city: It is the nation’s 20th-largest market, with a loyal fan base that sold out every game at the Edward Jones Dome from the team’s arrival until a long run of bad play — the Rams haven’t had a winning record since 2003.

If the Rams leave, it isn’t clear which team St. Louis might pursue.

The Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers also have been reported as teams that could move to Los Angeles.

The Raiders’ lease to play at O.co Coliseum, formerly known as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, has expired, and the team is now on a year-to-year agreement. The Chargers can announce their intention to leave San Diego between Feb. 1 and May 1 of each year through 2020 if they pay an early-termination fee tied to the bonds used to expand Qualcomm Stadium in 1997.

St. Louis has been through this before. The Chicago Cardinals moved here in 1960 and stayed until 1987. Unhappy with sharing Busch Stadium with the baseball Cardinals, owner Bill Bidwill moved the team to Arizona.

By the early 1990s, a domed stadium was being built with taxpayer money. St. Louis missed out on an expansion team in 1993 when the league awarded franchises to Jacksonville and Carolina. But in 1995, Rams owner Georgia Frontiere took the Rams back to her hometown. Kroenke bought in as minority owner.

Frontiere died, and in 2010, Kroenke bought the team. Meanwhile, the dome — small and outdated by NFL standards — became a point of contention. Negotiations about improvements have gone nowhere.

With the threat of the Rams’ departure looming, Nixon in November appointed former Anheuser-Busch executive David Peacock and veteran attorney Robert Blitz to spearhead an effort looking at a new stadium. They are expected to deliver a report to Nixon by Friday. One plan would call for a new stadium near the Mississippi River not far from the Gateway Arch.

Paying for it is the next hurdle.

The dome was built 20 years ago with 30-year bonds. The state of Missouri pays $12 million annually toward the debt; the city and St. Louis County pay $6 million each.

There appears to be no appetite for new public funding. Missouri Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard, a Republican, said it was doubtful that lawmakers would approve new spending for a football team when the state has so many other needs.

Nixon and Rainford said no new taxes or fees would be used for the new stadium, but Nixon has hinted that the bonds for the dome could be extended.

Anheuser-Busch is one of the NFL’s largest advertisers, and Peacock worked directly with the league on advertising and marketing while with the brewing giant. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame advisory board. Blitz was part of the legal team that helped bring the Rams to St. Louis and is legal counsel to the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority.

ESPN.com’s Arash Markazi and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

zn wrote:

Well a lot of learning a new offense is sitting down and reading.

And, coming back from surgery, he is going to have to re-tool his mechanics anyway, that is, rep and re-acquire them. Might as well learn a new version.

Flacco was drafted 2 years before Bradford. It’s not like Flacco is ancient.

I do not see this as a big impediment. Honest, I really don’t.

i would have to disagree. i know where this is going. we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

but. while flacco only has 2 years on bradford. he’s got twice as many games. he spent the majority of his career with the same coordinator while also not suffering 2 major injuries. well. 3 if you count his last year at oklahoma. that’s not even including the ankle injury which caused him to miss games.

i just don’t think flacco or manning’s 2014 season come close to the challenges bradford is having to overcome in 2015.

i also don’t see an oc coming in from the outside having any reason to try and build an offense with a qb who can’t stay healthy and doesn’t know his system. i mean he has fisher on his side. so he has that going for him. although who knows now that schotty is gone. maybe a lot of that was contingent on schotty coming back and bradford being in the system for 3 years.

i also realize i’m being overly-negative right now, so i should just stop right here.

here’s some stuff on cignetti. i like this hire cuz he’s worked with sam (and i’m assuming bradford is still very much in their plans). he was his quarterbacks coach, and he runs a ball control offense which falls in line with fisher’s philosophy. he’s also been a coordinator although at the college level.

interesting note. he worked alongside mike mccarthy when they were both at pittsburgh.

http://www.turfshowtimes.com/2012/2/7/2782957/st-louis-rams-quarterbacks-coach-frank-cignetti

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2011/08/politi_rutgers_frank_cignetti.html