21Dog wrote:

It’s a great game. Even better now that fighting is mostly gone from it.

Of course it’s best when your team has won two of the last three Cups.

It certainly boosts my enjoyment level.

I would think the Inglewood vote is the next event. I don’t know, though, if there is another wave of bureaucracy to get through after that. Maybe there are environmental hurdles, and so forth, that have to get cleared prior to the commencement of construction. Could take months. I would think that the project needs a legal green light in LA before the league votes on it. Once that happens, I would think things would move quickly, and dominoes will fall all around.

It would be nice if every team was owned publicly like Green Bay.

How the hell did that ever happen, btw?

Dak wrote:

Well, when you say local politicians, you’re talking about a loose conglomeration of city, county and state … and they kind of let the Convention and Visitors Bureau go through the paces. So, yeah, I see that the local effort was slow. I know they weren’t proactive. I just think the assumption was that SK was going to play this negotiation all the way to the end before deciding he’s hauling his team to L.A.

And, it is his team. St. Louis couldn’t build a stadium without his cooperation. And, there is no cooperation. As soon as SK came up with a valid plan to build an L.A. stadium, that was that. It’s not buying a car … it’s upgrading the stadium that you built for the franchise in the first place. And, you’re not talking about a private sale with private money, you’re talking about using taxpayer money. And, you have to go through the paces to show that you weren’t giving away public funds to a billionaire unnecessarily. You have to show good faith.

Now, you’re talking about public financing for a guy who can easily build a colossal stadium project on the West Coast, which makes the sale to the public even tougher.

My analogy wasn’t perfect. I didn’t take into account that this is not a private negotiation. This is a City that has to go through the paces to show that it’s being fiscally responsible before committing any type of public funding for a project that will enrich a very rich man. And, while the politicians are going through those paces, slowly as government often does, SK wasn’t returning phone calls to let everyone know, you know what, nevermind, you screwed the pooch by not kowtowing to my demands much earlier.

Yeah, STL’s leadership was slow to respond … but by SK staying silent, it had to make it difficult to move forward. SK could have started purchasing land and building his own STL stadium, for that matter. It’s not like anyone from L.A. was leading SK by the hand.

I think it is fair to say that Kroenke didn’t try very hard. He didn’t spend time trying to leverage St. Louis into a better proposal. So it is easy to wonder how early in the game he started flirting with the Los Angeles move.

I would guess he began thinking about Los Angeles as the florists were arranging the flowers for Georgia’s funeral. If you are considering investing hundreds of millions of dollars in something, you probably think through the “growth potential.” And he may well have concluded early on that there was nothing St. Louis could do – given the economy – that would be competitive with “growth potential” in Los Angeles. In which case, the convention center’s anemic proposal was nothing more than a Welcome mat in front of Los Angeles. It gave him the pretext. Because, certainly, once that was ruled on officially, Kroenke did not talk to the city again. And if he was trying to use LA for leverage (and nobody thinks he is, as far as I know), he would have kept talking to St. Louis.

zn wrote:

Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Hackett has pulled his name from consideration in St. Louis and will be joining Gus Bradley’s staff in Jacksonville. Per Rapoport, Hackett is expected be the team’s quarterbacks coach.

Mmm Hmm.

“I respectfully decline the opportunity to be Offensive Coordinator for the Rams because I just cannot pass up the opportunity to be QB coach for Blake Bortles and Chad Henne in Jacksonville,” said no-one ever.

nittany ram wrote:

Zooey wrote:
Fine by me.

Nathaniel Hackett is not a football name. Just don’t like the sound of it.

Agreed. Nathaniel Hackett sounds more like a colonial era rabble rouser than a football coach.

The Rams need someone who understands x’s and o’s. They don’t need a gadfly to King George.

Exactly.

That’s why I liked Chudzinski. You can score points behind a man like that. You need a guy with a name like Biertzhopfer or something. Something that sounds like it’s made of steel.

I think a person should be careful before debating Matt Damon, Jon Stewart, or Richard Sherman. They are smarter than you are.

Dak wrote:

Well, the news in the Breer story is that there are NFL people applauding the Kroenke plan, insinuating that the move to L.A. from STL has support from important people with pull. Then, Breer says the Rams will do 2 things — tell STL they’re going year-to-year on the lease and presenting signatures to put a rezoning issue on the ballot for the L.A. area stadium. And, that happens right on queue.

Let’s just say all signs point to the Rams moving. And, no signs point to them staying here.

We knew the Rams were going year-to-year, and we knew they were going to go for re-zoning. That’s a given. Even if the Rams are completely bluffing, they would do that.

You’re right, though. The closest thing to anybody applying the brakes is Spanos, and I don’t think that’s enough without something from the NFL offices. And while they are going through the process, there is certainly nothing like a warning, or strong language of any kind suggesting there could be any contention behind the closed doors.

But if I’m St. Louis…my biggest concern is the fact that the Peacock deal is based on property that they do not own. Even if it is smooth sailing to acquire all the land rights, they are way behind. The shovels can hit the dirt in Los Angeles before St. Louis even has the property squared away, and if a shovel hits the ground, it is completely over.

zn wrote:

I was just using the snowblower. Man. I don’t know how anyone ever survived the world before snowblowers.

Honest it was like this:

What’s the white stuff?

60 degrees here, and it hasn’t rained in 2015.

Zooey wrote:

NFL
Find this article at:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000463601/article/rams-owners-stadium-plan-pushes-nfl-closer-to-la-return

Rams owner’s stadium plan pushes NFL closer to L.A. return

By Albert Breer
NFL Media reporter
Published: Jan. 26, 2015 at 04:00 p.m. Updated: Jan. 27, 2015 at 09:23 a.m.

After two decades away, the NFL is closer than it has ever been to returning to Los Angeles.

And after so many false starts since the Raiders and Rams bolted at the end of the 1994 season, one league source said, “We’re beginning to see the goal line.”

The early January announcement that Rams owner Stan Kroenke is planning an extravagant Inglewood stadium sent shockwaves through NFL circles, but — according to those with direct knowledge of the proceedings — was met with quiet applause at the league office, which has been waiting for a powerful plan like this one to get behind. And despite St. Louis and Missouri officials responding quickly with their own stadium vision, the momentum here has very clearly shifted west.

The bottom line is, this L.A. proposal is not like its predecessors. It’s the first led by a team owner, blowing up the league’s long-held belief that juggling the task of running a team with managing such a project in the nation’s second biggest city would be too big a burden. It’s on the largest plot of land of any of the proposed L.A. sites. It’s in a more desirable end of the region. It’s to be privately funded by a man who can afford it.

It’s not done, of course. But the idea that the Rams could be playing at the Rose Bowl, L.A. Coliseum or Dodger Stadium in 2016 and 2017 and in Kroenke’s new Southern California football palace in 2018 is not at all far-fetched. In fact, it’s trending toward becoming a likelihood.

“It’s a bold move by Stan,” said one source who has worked with the league on Los Angeles. “Whether it results in a stadium at the site billed by the parties, whether it’s the Rams going in, or a different team, or two teams, that much we don’t know.”

There is more certainty here than meets the eye, though.

According to two involved sources, the Rams presented the project to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell before the December owners meetings in Dallas. As it worked out, that was as Goodell and the league were getting the new personal conduct policy ready for voting. And the plan had always been for the commissioner to turn more attention to L.A. once the policy was done. Suffice it to say, Kroenke gave him plenty to chew on.

Two big steps are expected this week. The Rams will provide notice to St. Louis that they’re going year-to-year on their lease before Wednesday’s deadline to do so. And they’ll likely turn in to the city of Inglewood the 8,500 signatures necessary to set up a public vote, which will most likely take place in the spring, to re-zone the land where the stadium will be built. According to a source, the team already has the signatures in hand. UPDATE: The team informed the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission on Monday about its decision to change the lease to year-to-year. Also on Monday, per a source, 20,000-plus signatures were delivered to Inglewood in support of bringing the matter to a vote.

The 60-acre plot Kroenke bought in January 2014 is approved for a stadium, but the adjacent 238-acre area owned by the Stockbridge Capital Group isn’t. Once all 298 acres are zoned properly, shovels can break ground.

And therein lies the other difference in Inglewood: the size of the area where the stadium would go up. By comparison, the NFL’s largest physical structure, Cowboys Stadium, sits on a plot of just 73 acres.

NFL officials deferred comment on the recent developments to the Rams, who declined to discuss their plans. But no matter how you chop all this up and put it together, St. Louis is on the clock. A St. Louis stadium task force presented its plan to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon earlier this month. It included the dream of an open-air, 64,000-seat stadium on the banks of the Mississippi River that could also potentially be home to a Major League Soccer franchise.

Two things need to happen for that stadium — which, on paper, isn’t as modern as projects in Minneapolis or Atlanta, though that could certainly change — to go forward, and neither step will be simple. First, the land needs to be acquired. Second, financing needs to be secured, with the expectation being that it’ll be a 40-60 public-private split. It’s unclear at this point if it’ll take a vote to get there.

How that plays out will determine whether or not the club meets the league’s relocation guidelines, which call for a team to demonstrate that the existing market has failed. If the financing includes an eventual public contribution, that will make it tougher for the Rams to qualify for relocation, but if the St. Louis plan does not end up including much public money, that could grease the skids for a move. In any case, the Rams have been less successful than the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders when it comes to demonstrating that their market has failed.

But all of that might not matter. Remember, the league has a huge interest in making Los Angeles work, one way or another, and this project seems to meet the right-team, right-owner, right-stadium threshold.

The way it’s been laid out to the clubs, the league wants the L.A. stadium to be an iconic venue that’s a sports and entertainment destination. This vast property would satisfy that, with a number of projects expected to pop up on the periphery within the grounds around the team’s home, creating a West Coast headquarters of sorts for the league.

Kroenke is also amenable to the idea of having a second team as part of the project, according to a source, which would help the NFL make the most of the effort.

At the very least, Kroenke’s bombshell accelerated the L.A. timeline and put pressure on a number of entities with an interest in the market — on the cities of Los Angeles (proper) and Carson to push their projects forward, on the cities of Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis to ramp up efforts to keep their own teams, and on the Raiders and Chargers to figure out their futures. The movement on the St. Louis stadium effort is proof positive of that.

The NFL does still have some control here. Three-quarters of the owners must vote to approve the move, as is required in the bylaws for relocation, and some league waivers and funding likely would be needed to make the project right. Also, Kroenke still hasn’t satisfied the league’s cross-ownership rules by divesting himself of the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, something he has until the end of the calendar year to do.

But what’s really important here is much simpler than that: The powers that be on Park Avenue have been waiting a long time for the right roadmap to get back to L.A.

It seems like Kroenke gave it to them.

And if they see it like that, it’s unlikely anything will stand in the way.

Follow Albert Breer on Twitter @AlbertBreer.

What do you think of THAT Format Hell, zn?

Go ahead. Delete it. See if I care.

edit

Wow. Looks like an expensive framing job.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by Zooey.

wv wrote:

Well, if the Patriots win, I could see the NFL skating the issue, because they certainly don’t want a tainted Super Bowl winner.

OR, regardless of the outcome (and much more likely if the Pats lose), the NFL could really come down hard on the Patriots because they’ve already tainted the playoffs … and what better way to deter tampering in the future than to smack the Pats. I would propose a year-long suspension to Belicheat, a loss of 1st-round picks for the next 3 years, and a $10 million fine to the organization. And, that’s with no direct evidence. Remember, the NFL already set a precedent of coming down hard on a head coach without any direct evidence that he participated in a violation when they suspended Sean Payton for a year. With direct evidence, pretty much double the suspension and triple the fine.

Well….what if Belichick didnt know? …don’t shoot
the questioner.

w
v

Then he gets a one year paid vacation erroneously, but serves to make a point.

Dak wrote:

Yes, they should talk, unless a doctor says they have a social anxiety disorder. If you’re the NFL, you need the media. You let players clam up, and you reduce the number of happy story lines in the media and reduce exposure of your sport to the fans. You know, those reporters still have to fill copy … I think you’d rather have them doing that with little chitty-chatty stuff with the players than actually think and dig into substantive issues.

Yeah, but there will always be people who WANT to talk, who want to be in front of the cameras.

A few Marshawn Lynches aside, the airwaves will still be full of guys “giving it 110% on the field, and taking it all one game at a time.”

My father-in-law has pointed out that anything is easy…if you know how to do it.

Getting two solid-to-good OL (and a qb) is easy. That’s 3 guys.

Ya just have to get the right three.

The trick is knowing which three guys are the right ones.

Meanwhile, on Dallas Sports Radio 1310, former Super Bowl champion quarterback Troy Aikman simply said, “For the balls to be deflated, that doesn’t happen unless the quarterback wants that to happen, I can assure you of that.”

That statement rings forcefully true to me.

I hadn’t given this much thought. But Aikman is right. It’s inconceivable that Brady didn’t know.

PA Ram wrote:

So if his contract is up in a week why the hell not just let him interview?

If I’m Chud, I look at the Colts and think–“Well screw you.”

It’s sort of pointless.

It tells him that they really want him to stay. That’s all it does, but it does it powerfully.