StL in the NFL?

Well...Silent Stan's cards are now on the table. Wow! What a hideous, ghastly, and detestable sewage plant we are all brainless enough to live in. And to think in 1900 StL was the nation's fourth largest city. Why haven't we left with all of the smart people?

Does anyone still believe the Rams will be here long term? If that miracle happens, there's no way Kroenke is the owner. A franchise trade, or some sort of team ownership swap, is all that die-hard Rams fans can hope for if the construction helmets with horns will be useful much longer.

Even the most loyal StL/NFL fans would rather take a bamboo shoot under the fingernails than spend a nickel on any product of which Stan would be the beneficiary. The application that Kroenke's writers submitted to the NFL arguing for re-location to LA precludes any such possibility. The Edward Jones Dome operators can start planning the religious conventions and monster truck exhibitions now. Dave Peacock can start working on selling the National Car Rental stadium idea to other owners. ESK has other ideas and isn't bashful about leaving trash to be picked up by someone else.

Arguing the points of Stan's shots at St. Louis, and its viability as an NFL market, is useless. It's nothing more than a lawyered-up, best shot at making Stan's fellow NFL owners buy in to his side of the story, and version of history. What's more, Kroenke undoubtedly knows St. Louis is much more than what the document portrays it to be. In a vulnerable position with the re-location process, he's compelled to take a Hail-Mary shot to make Inglewood appear more attractive than Carson...and St. Louis. I would think, and hope, that the other multi-million and-billionaires who will decide St. Louis' fate are above the baloney-ball he's trying to sell. All they have to do is view some of the pro-St. Louis statements made when he took full control of the team. That wasn't all that long ago.

When some of the owners see what the Peacock/Blitz task force has presented to the league, they will say, "I'd take that". The realization should then take hold that Stan is not doing right by anyone but himself. When the new stadium effort began, Mr. K. had obviously already checked out of the StL market. If his heart wasn't irrevocably set on the Inglewood project, he would have engaged in at least some new stadium discussion. Of course, we know that didn't happen. If he kept the new stadium effort at arms length he could continue to promote the notion that St. Louis didn't do its part when talks of upgrading the dome didn't produce what he wanted; and then he could continue to say the contract was breached, and that allows me to do whatever I want.

Will some other owner take the new riverfront stadium deal and run with it? There aren't many obvious candidates for that. In the long run, St. Louis football fans will not necessarily get what they deserve, but what the NFL brass and owners think is best for business. That's the frightening part.