Dak wrote:

My prediction at this point is that the NFL will find that St. Louis deserves a franchise, but not as much as L.A., and it’s SK’s team, so sorry, St. Louis fans, hope you find something in the future.

That is pretty much the way I see it, too.

You are right about the Development. The fact that Stan – who is a developer – has plans for a massive Los Angeles development, and no plans for a St. Louis development…. I mean, you’re right. He could have found a place to build a massive retail/commercial/residential/office stadium complex in St. Louis, and made another fortune.

This isn’t just a leverage play against St. Louis. This is no “Build me a stadium, or I’ll leave” threat. Compared to the LA project, getting an absolutely free $1 billion stadium in St. Louis STILL isn’t as attractive. And it won’t be absolutely free. And he wouldn’t own it.

At this point, I think the only hope for St. Louis Rams fans is a franchise swap between Kroenke and Davis in which the Rams stay in St. Louis, and Kroenke takes the Raiders to LA. But while I think Kroenke probably doesn’t care about the Rams per se, I’d be willing to bet that the NFL doesn’t want the Raiders to be the team elevated to Glory Status in NFL West. The Raiders are not a good poster child for the NFL.

I think it comes down to what you said when the dust settles. “St. Louis is a great city, and we want the NFL there, and we are really sorry it isn’t going to be the Rams, but we will take care of you somehow.”

That is what the tea leaves look like now.

But then…there is still the possibility of a wild card that changes everything. Such as….Dodgers Stadium.

**********************

I don’t see very much there that has substance, and I can’t imagine anybody wanting to work with McCourt. But. Who knows?
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2015/03/dodgers_nfl_stadium_chavez_ravine.php#more

Could Dodgers Owners Swoop in With NFL Stadium Proposal?
Thursday, March 19, 2015, by Adrian Glick Kudler

Guggenheim Partners, the group that bought the Dodgers a few years back, knows its Los Angeles history: wait around long enough and every last NFL stadium plan will die off. Plus, the NFL has always coveted Chavez Ravine, home of Dodger Stadium. With all that in mind, they seem to be biding their time, holding their cards close to the chest, and quietly considering the idea of putting a football stadium on the copious amounts of land that surround their baseball stadium. Much-hated former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt still owns most of that land, and he tells the LA Business Journal (via LAObserved) in an interview this week—as coyly as possible—that the idea is still very much in play for him and Guggenheim.

Years ago, when McCourt still owned the team and stadium, he proposed a massive multi-use campus surrounding the stadium, but now he says there are no firm development plans: ” think that Guggenheim has some ideas in terms of what they’d like to develop by Dodger Stadium, so we’ll be having conversations with them in the future.”

When the LABJ asked about potential proposals, he gets sly: “There’s a lot swirling around regarding the NFL and all that, so I think we’ll see what plays out in various locations and then we’ll see what they want to do.” He’s referring to the latest most-promising plan, in Inglewood (from St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke) and the latest second-place player, a joint Chargers/Raiders proposal for Carson. But the Inglewood plan now has its first official legal challenge in the works, and the most promising plan of the last half-decade, Downtown LA’s Farmers Field, just got killed off last week. LA is like a Hunger Games for NFL stadiums.

Guggenheim has also reportedly had talks with the NFL in the past about bringing football to the Dodger land—were those talks secretly massively successful and they’re all just waiting for the right moment to say something? Or have they already failed and McCourt is just being typically douchey? Or maybe he’s burnishing his rep, since in the past the NFL has not seemed too thrilled to work with him.

McCourt adds a commonly-held truth: “I think that Chavez Ravine has always been a preferred location for the NFL.” But the more persistent truth is that the NFL loves not having a team in LA, because it loves all these battles, it loves developers competing for its affections, and it loves having the threat of a move to hold over other cities’ heads.

*************************

Traded to an Eagles board for a poster to be named later.

Unbelievable.

And totally Evil Genius.

They just moved the goalposts. They have just inoculated themselves against their own by-laws. Perfect.

That doesn’t mean that the Rams ARE moving. It just means that if they do, the NFL can make an excuse.

Oh, boy.

I just had to share that with everybody I know.

That’s about what I read for a living, only with worse spelling and punctuation. But with about that level of insight, and organizational rigor.

I am very sorry to hear this, Herzog. I wish there was something I could do or say to help. Hopefully you can take some solace in knowing that you are among friends here, and we all are saddened at your pain. I hope the best for you, your nephew, and the family as you struggle through this, hopefully to a positive outcome.

Keep us posted.

Be well, my friend.

On the bright side, this will NEVER happen again.

Zooey wrote:

On the bright side, this will NEVER happen again.

Actually. Everything was right about that except the final score.

More on health care than defense?

I don’t remember ever seeing a budget graph in which defense was much under half the overall budget.

Artificial turf in Los Angeles.

Count me out.

Well, I will always vote in favor of delaying PMS, if possible.

Except your message still shows as unread, and my response isn’t there in my box. So did you get my response?

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

They did NOT want the story to leak. They considered a leak of that story to be an unacceptable risk. Of what, we don’t know.

Also, maybe they just don’t care because at this time next year, JT will be covering high school football.

Yet, the story had already leaked. From the Bradford camp, we know that they were hearing about trade talk during the combine. We do know that Kelly talked to Bradford’s OU coaches…chances are very likley that got back to him. In fact one reason Bradford refused a paycut, according to his side, is because they thought it was just a way to make him more tradeable. Regardless of that detail, if the agent is hearing that kind of thing, chances are, he conveys it to Thomas.

So the trade wasn’t a secret. In fact–there was no reason to keep it secret.

Nevertheless, it goes like this. Thomas hears things from Bradford’s agent, and possibly other sources. So he directly asks Fisher one on one.

Fisher has any number of options there short of direct revelation. He could say, please keep this to yourself for the time being, but, we’re keeping our options open.

But instead, on the strength of Fisher’s denial, Thomas goes public hours before the trade and says “I was told directly by the best source that there’s nothing to this.” Then, wham, the trade happens, and the result of going public is, some people are laughing at JT and calling him a dupe and saying he’s not credible.

Meanwhile, JT says, no coach ever lied to me under those conditions before. And we have seen JT say yeah I talked to them, but I have to keep it to myself. If no coach ever lied to him, given his reaction to this, that includes Fisher–otherwise, JT would have said long before this “no one ever lied to me before except Fisher.” Yet what are the odds JT never asked a question like this before?

That means there’s a protocol they have that has been in place for a long time. JT asks, they don’t lie, though we also know from the past that JT DOES sometimes say in effect “I am not at liberty to discuss it.”

Fisher must know that JT had heard things about the trade. JT was basically saying, I will put this story to rest on the basis of your word. Fisher would also know that coming out with an official denial would make JT look bad after the trade.

I usually don’t take the PD’s side against the team. For example, I thought the entire “equipment manager scandal” thing was absurd.

But I cannot help but think Fisher comes across as a prick on this one.

..

The story leaked, and they contained it. They contained it by denying it. The front office met together – clearly – and decided as a team to deny the rumors. Fisher stuck with the game plan of denial. That’s all we know.

We don’t know that “there was no reason to keep it a secret.” There obviously WAS a reason. We don’t know what it is, and we might not like it if we heard it, but the front office consciously decided to keep a lid on it as much as possible. Maybe Philadelphia wanted to keep it quiet, too. The last thing GMs want is the media and fans all going berserk with their trade scenarios. You’ve heard fans. Rams fans would be calling the radio saying they want Foles and the next two 1st round picks from Philly, and Philly fans would be saying the same thing, and both fan bases would be even more pissed off at the actual trade. Who needs the media shitstorm that would come with trading a QB? I’d want to keep talk to a minimum beforehand if it was me, that’s for sure.

That’s just a top-of-my-head rationale for lying about it. There could be other reasons.

I do think it was a bad move on Fisher’s part because it isn’t a matter of insignificance to alienate a reporter. That’s not a good idea.

rfl wrote:

JT is really, really pissed off.

Snead and Fisher apparently broke the unwritten rules about playing the game cagey, but not blowing your credibility with your team’s beat reporters.

I still haven’t really heard a good theory about why they played it this way.

They did NOT want the story to leak. They considered a leak of that story to be an unacceptable risk. Of what, we don’t know.

Also, maybe they just don’t care because at this time next year, JT will be covering high school football.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by Zooey.

I take BPA at #10 regardless of position. Even if he’s DL.

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

And they should get to know their teammates. And, of course, get to know the locker room.

Because that is what it’s about.

I think it’s important for me to be who I am. I think I’m sarcastic, and that’s okay. I’ve been getting away from that, from my core beliefs. I’ve been trying to do too much, I think. And I really believe that if I can just be the best me I can be, that’s what it’s all about. That just makes me a better poster. So I think it’s good that I’m starting over fresh at being me.