WorkingAllTheTime

It really depends on the team. For example, the "Fins" stop playing football once we have anything less than 12 hours of daylight, and when the leaves in New England just begin to change color. Brrrr! Time to get under a blanket and sleep until training camp.

They were still good enough to beat the Cheatriots without their "home field advantage."

 

I think it's great you get filled with pride over the results of meaningless games. I'm sure that's the result of so much experience for such a long time, but still. Even when the other team isn't really putting forward a serious effort, you still get excited.

 

Are "Fins" fans glad that it doesn't get cold in Tuscaloosa?

The Kraft Crime Syndicate has the home locker room in Denver bugged? Wow, I'm impressed.

 

Hey "Fins" fans, it's October 1. Time to bundle up. Thanks for a great pre-season. Don't forget to get your opening week champions t-shirts at the pro shop. See you next July.

 

Not gonna lie.... these exchanges between you two love birds literally make me giggle. It's like watching an old married couple argue in a grocery store about whether or not to buy canned or frozen peas.

Well that was a fun but short ride on the bandwagon! Now where do I go? Still to early to immerse myself in the Cowboys mock drafts. I guess it would be nice to see Peyton win one more on the way out. And nice to see Demarcus Ware get a Super Bowl.

 

My standing rule is I always pull for the last AFC West team left standing. So, yeah, I am going to root for Denver (as much as I twitch as I type that). If New England wins next week, then I guess I will root for the NFC team, preferably Arizona, though, simply because I grew up in St. Louis watching the football Cardinals, so there is still a special place in my heart for them.... even if Bill Bidwell was the original schmuck owner to stick it to the Lou.

It seems my predictions were one week off.... must have something to do with 2016 being a leap year or something.

 

Let's see....

 

Big playoff game...

 

Missed offensive opportunities...

 

Ridiculous clock management...

 

But...they had their opportunities, at least. You have to admit, it was a good season, and a great run after going 0-5. Don't forget that.

 

Oh, goodie. Another moral victory for Chiefs fan. Let me put that trophy right up..... oh..... wait.... they don't give out participation trophies in the NFL playoffs (unless you are in Indianapolis, where they hang a banner for losing playoff games.... perhaps next they can give out letterjackets with patches for all their divisional stats).

It seems my predictions were one week off.... must have something to do with 2016 being a leap year or something.

 

Let's see....

 

Big playoff game...

 

Missed offensive opportunities...

 

Ridiculous clock management...

 

But...they had their opportunities, at least. You have to admit, it was a good season, and a great run after going 0-5. Don't forget that.

Let's bring the year of the pedant to OLV.

 

The Chiefs were 1-5.

 

 

Wait, so we aren't already a bunch of pedants?

Hate to see a usually classy Rodgers crying about a dumb coin toss.

 

Agreed. Not only was the result of the flip was the same each time, Rodgers' whining that he would have called 'heads' if given the chance on the do-over literally made me roll my eyes and think "sure, Aaron, you just go on arguing that."

 

What's next? "Hey ref, if you hadn't have called that penalty, I really would have thrown it to that other guy over there"?

 

I get close playoff losses are frustrating and no competitor likes to lose, but trying to pin a loss on a coin flip.... literally, a flip of the coin..... not the usual class we expect for #12.

 

To my knowledge, that coin flip malfunction has never happened before. The coin toss went against the Packers both times, so it's irrelevant. It will be forgotten soon enough.

 

The Packers (Aaron Rodgers included) won't blame the loss on that coin. When they go over the game film, they certainly won't be focusing on the coin flip.

 

I agree with this, too. The league puts players in a bad spot when they give media access to the team immediately following a loss. They don't have enough time to process and instead sometimes speak from emotion rather than logic. I am certain Aaron will regret making the coin flip comment and I agree it will be a non factor down the road.

 

Now, if the league can do something about clarifying what constitutes a catch..... this seems to keep coming up in key games.... alas, I do not think there is an easy answer to that one.

Kroenke pretty well forced himself out of St. Louis by trashing the city in his relocation request to the NFL.

 

Mayor Francis Slay called him and the NFL "pathetic", remarking that, "they were not being truthful" and "we were being led on."

 

Other St. Louis natives in the spotlight have made their thoughts known publicly, from NHL goaltender Ben Bishop, who chirped Stan Kroenke through Twitter after shutting out the billionaire's NHL team that night, to Andy Cohen, who gave Kroenke the double finger salute on his Bravo program.

 

Then there was Joe Buck, son of St. Louis legend Jack Buck and current national broadcaster for Fox Sports, who spoke out on the issue on Twitter recently:

 

"Suck the life out of a team, run it down, raise prices, then say it isn't supported and leave. Great example for the NFL to celebrate JOKE!"

 

As for the sports fans of St. Louis themselves, they've made their thoughts known as well:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMflpOLq4M

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyPZ2d14Iyw

 

In all, as a St. Louisan and sports fan, I'm sad to the Rams go, but the ownership did everything it possibly could to alienate a city renowned for having a loyal, dedicated fan base. From making the team an unwatchable comedy-of-intentional-errors suckfest for an entire decade, to throwing the city of St. Louis and the fans that patronized the team under the bus.

 

For me personally, I always wanted to support the Rams, but the NFL's slimey attitudes made for a very conflicting kind of support from me. Now that the team is gone, and has pissed all over my city, I can firmly say that the NFL is a disgusting joke of an operation. Too interested in marginal profit returns to deal with the on-field injury and concussion crisis in it's sport, and the off-field antics of it's stars.

 

f**k the NFL. f**k Stan Kroenke.

 

Now St. Louis can actually spend the money it was going to waste on a new stadium on something more important. And there are no end to the things that need funding in St. Louis. Public education is an embarrassment, as is mass transit in the area. Plus you can use some of that stadium money on other entertainment items that will bring in better return on investment. I saw someone advocating for the country's largest aquarium to be put on the shore of the Mississippi River for less thant he cost of a new stadium. And in their calculations, it estimated that it'd bring in millions more in revenue for the city than an NFL team. And then, of course, we could always use this money to bring in more, and better, law enforcement, and training programs, so that we can avoid a mar on our city again like the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson/Grand Jury fiasco/Robert McCullouch joke. Of course, now we're entering the realm of politics, and that's best left for SOCN.

 

Edit to include stuff from Joe Buck.

 

St. Louis went down the same road with Bill Bidwell and the football Cardinals. He bolted from St. Louis for Arizona in 1987 with the apparent promise of a new stadium in the desert.... the team moved into that new stadium in 2005. That's right, the Arizona Cardinals played in a freaking college football stadium for 18 years after leaving St. Louis. That's a bit of karma, I guess, that Bidwell moved away with the dream of a shiny new stadium and somehow got duped for nearly 2 decades.

 

And Bidwell did basically the same thing Kroenke did.... he blamed St. Louis rather than his own inept performance as an owner for some of the financials (keeping in mind the football Cardinals were also very well supported in St. Louis). It was not until Bidwell's son took over the team that the Cardinals were no longer a laughing stock in the league.

 

At least this time Kroenke actually has a stadium to go to. He's got that over Bidwell.

 

But, yeah, St. Louis has been down this road before and it should not go down it again.

 

I am a native St. Louisan and I will be blunt.... St. Louis needs to tell the NFL to go f*** itself. St. Louis is a medium market city that can and will support the NFL, but will always be at the mercy of threats to move if the club that resides there does not get a new stadium every ten or so years. That is complete and utter bulls***. The only thing that separates St. Louis from the other NFL aspiring cities like Salt Lake, Oklahoma City, Portland, etc. is that St. Louis has had an NFL club and has proven it can support one. I do believe those other cities can support one, too, by the way. But the number of franchises is finite and the NFL just plays these cities as a means to get better deals in their current markets. It is extortion, pure and simple.

A couple of comments:

 

1) This is not really that different from what a lot of other businesses do.

 

2) The owner has every right to maximize the value of his or her investment.

 

3) I agree that cities should tell the NFL to f**k off...doing so, as Minnesota proved, is almost impossible, even though every financial analysis shows that it's a f***ed up deal.

 

I guess I just expect more of a symbiosis from a sports owner and the city, like what the Cardinals and Blues owners are all about in the city. Both own the team, but both try to use the team to make the city better. By making the city better, you increase the value of your own property. It's win-win, as opposed to win-while-being-an-asshole.

 

I would suggest this.... expecting it is a nice thought, but it's actually a naive thought (I don't mean that in a harsh way).

 

The baseball Cardinals have a very unique situation in Bill DeWitt. He is a St. Louis native and has some business ties to the city, but, in fact, operates out of Ohio and has more ties to that river city than St. Louis. But he understands the Cardinals brand as it relates to Missouri. He remains committed to St. Louis because he understands the benefit it brings him.

 

The Blues went through their own ownership s***storm. You might be too young to remember it, but the team went through a series of owners who put the club in a precarious position. Some were committed to St. Louis, some not. One owner flirted with letting the team move to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. That is not a joke. The Saskatoon Blues nearly happened.

 

The St. Louis Cardinals are their own thing.

 

While that happened with the Blues before I was born, I'm something of a Blues fanatic and very, very well-versed in the history of the club, and so I know all about the "Where the hell is Saskatoon" saga.

 

For starters, the Saskatoon Blues would never have happened. The Blues' owners may have been interested in selling to the highest bidder, but the league would have never allowed that, and if I remember correctly, actually stepped up and blocked the sale.

 

But that was with Ralston Purina at the helm. Also, incidentally, Ralston Purina's little temper tantrum regarding their ownership of the Blues extended beyond just the ownership debacle. it's the only time in NHL history that a team refused to participate in the NHL draft, in 1983, and the Blues missed out on having a chance at names like Yzerman, Hasek, LaFontaine and Neely.

 

Which is why I won't buy Ralston Purina products, despite it happening 6 years before I was born!

 

But the current ownership group for the Blues is fronted by Tom Stillman, a St. Louis guy who pretty desperately rounded up a group of investors to keep the team in St. Louis when Dave Checketts and his slimey buddies pulled out.. And here's an excerpt from Stillman out of the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

 

"We love St. Louis," Stillman said. "We know that it's a tremendous place to live, to work, to raise a family and to be a sports fan. We also think it is a great place for a home of a sports franchise, mainly because the fans and other supporters are so loyal and dedicated and classy. I guess I don't understand wanting to be anywhere else, no matter how big the market or the untold riches that might await. This is where we want to be."

 

You could say that he's just saying that to win points given the mood of the city, but given how hard he seemed to fight to put together a group to keep the team here, and then how he's given [a rather dumb] GM Doug Armstrong a blank check and very long leash, even though he's not insanely wealthy in comparison to other owners... I dunno, to me, it says that he's committed to keeping the team here despite it maybe not being the best for his bottom line sometimes.

 

And I think St. Louisans have responded well to that loyalty show by Stillman to the city, packing the Scottrade Center to at least 95% capacity every year save for one despite rising ticket prices and a stagnation in terms of performance on the ice. Also severely underrated is the lease deal the Blues have with the city, which favors the city so incredibly much that it's clearly not good business.

 

If Kroenke isn't that kind of owner, one that can't see the importance of the city (his home city) over a potential to make his very-healthy bottom-line over-nourished, than we don't need him.

 

I'd have been more upset if the City paid the hundreds of millions it didn't have to the greedy Kroenke anyways. It just sucks that he sucks that much as a person to demand it in the first place. He looks like slime, acts like slime, and he's been called out for it by anyone close enough to the city of St. Louis to smell the stench of slime.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am a St. Louis native. Trust me, I know the fandom around the Cardinals and the Blues. The Blues have always drawn well. I agree the current ownership has revived some passion in the team and the Blues, I think, will be a sort of secondary beneficiary of the Rams departure with them being the only show in town in the winter, having stayed after threats to leave (Saskatoon, after all, was not the only time it happened), etc.

 

Now, with the Saskatoon thing, the NHL blocking Saskatoon was part of the story, but far from the NHL saving the Blues in St. Louis. Your recap is mostly correct, but only mostly because it is missing key elements.

 

Yes, the NHL rejected the sale of the team to people in Saskatoon. Yes, Ralston Purina then refused to attend the draft. In between that time, though, there were a lawsuits filed and the NHL decision was settled in court much later. Yes, Ralston continued to throw a tantrum. After the draft, though, Ralston basically said they were going to liquidate the team and the NHL, realizing there was little it could do to stop Ralston and it would be facing another series of lawsuits, this time from the players' union and others, stepped in and took over the team. The NHL then committed to doing what they could to keep the team in St. Louis, but did not promise to keep the team in St. Louis. Had Harry Ornest not stepped up (he was the only person who made a formal bid to buy the club), the NHL would have most certainly moved the Blues out of St. Louis.

 

After it was all said and done, Ralston and the NHL quietly settled out of court and no one really knows for what. It is important to note this all happened right around the same time Al Davis successfully sued the NFL to move to Los Angeles. My hunch is Ralston actually got paid by the league in the settlement, not the other way around.

 

It is no surprise, then, that all the major sports leagues started tightening down their processes to relocate a team after these debacles. Even then, though, you still had crazy moves for a while and you still do. Tightening down and formalizing the process tends to save face for the leagues, but the reality is most owners, if they really want to, can move a club simply by persuading their buddies in the ownership fraternity it is a good financial deal for all of them.

Hate to see a usually classy Rodgers crying about a dumb coin toss.

 

Agreed. Not only was the result of the flip was the same each time, Rodgers' whining that he would have called 'heads' if given the chance on the do-over literally made me roll my eyes and think "sure, Aaron, you just go on arguing that."

 

What's next? "Hey ref, if you hadn't have called that penalty, I really would have thrown it to that other guy over there"?

 

I get close playoff losses are frustrating and no competitor likes to lose, but trying to pin a loss on a coin flip.... literally, a flip of the coin..... not the usual class we expect for #12.

It seems my predictions were one week off.... must have something to do with 2016 being a leap year or something.

 

Let's see....

 

Big playoff game...

 

Missed offensive opportunities...

 

Ridiculous clock management...

 

Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah. Marty Schottenheimer.

 

Again, Marty Schottenheimer = Andy Reid.... Mandy Schottenreid.

Started with Signals, bounced around all the stuff prior, Grace Under Pressure through Clockwork Angels in order.

When I saw that story come up, my first instinct was, "Well, that was expected."

 

I completely agree with LABT's notion that, while Phillips wrote his own book, there were plenty of people supplying the paper. Such a waste of talent. Such a waste of the gift of life.

 

The first finger should point at Tom Osbourne. His shameful mishandling of Phillips was a key factor. Osbourne had nothing to do with Phillips' troubled upbringing, but he could have done something with the young adult. He could have taught him that there are always consequences to one's actions.

 

Yep, the result of the win-at-all-costs mentality that often permeates big time sports. Way too many coaches and administrators at the college level, and coaches and executives at the professional level, are willing to turn a blind eye to a troubled athlete who has talent (Aaron Hernandez, anyone?).

 

I would suggest, as well, that fans have a degree of complicit guilt by not more readily demanding consequences. Sure, lots of people say "tisk, tisk" and shake their heads, but not enough make their voice known through their wallets. This is especially true of the booster programs in college sports.

 

Every now and then, you get a coach who does something right. Boykin getting suspended for the Alamo Bowl, I think, is a good example. I am certain Patterson got some pressure to just bench him for a quarter and let him play. I am certain he got all sorts of "he's just a kid", "it's his last game", "he didn't really mean it", "you can't suspend the star quarterback" stuff, but Patterson stuck to his guns on it. That's a micro example, of course, but the kind of thing that needs to continue. Boykin learned that you can do whatever you want, including being a drunken jacka**, but with that decision comes a major consequence.

 

(Slightly related side note... every year its seems there is at least one player who gets into trouble prior to the Alamo Bowl.... why do coaches continue to stay downtown? Seriously, why put your kids within a stones through of the Riverwalk, which, after dark, is little more than an obnoxious bar district? Why not just take the team out of town? Stay at the freaking JW Marriott complex north of the city. It's so far out there aren't bus routes there and SA has no other public transit to speak of. It would make it very challenging for players to get downtown at night.)

Cold weather games, especially those in wind, are brutal. The ball is so hard it feels like a stone. The hits feel more pronounced. You have a hard time grabbing anything either with your hands or arms because your limbs feel numb. The ground feels like concrete (although heated turf in NFL stadiums does alleviate some of that). Tears literally freeze to your eye. It. Absolutely. Sucks.

 

I don't envy any of those players.

 

Generally, I think the league would try not to postpone a cold weather game simply because they hype the cold weather games so much (the legacy of the Ice Bowl, I guess).

 

At the same time, I think PM has a valid question. At what point do they do something? In light of CTE and other player safety concerns, as some point playing in the cold no longer gets hyped as manly in the media. At some point it becomes hyped as a dangerous act. Layer in some concerns about fan safety in the cold and Roger will have to run is PR cost-benefit-analysis routine.

 

I can say that there is an odd subculture of people in the North who take pride in their ability to tolerate cold, but then take it to the extremes. I remember being at a game in Green Bay a few years ago and it was in the zero range. One of the beer vendors was wearing shorts.... and told everyone he always wears shorts no matter what because "he can handle the cold". A few folks in the stands basically worshiped his toughness. Dude, wearing shorts in zero degree weather does not make you manly, it makes you either crazy or stupid.... maybe crazy stupid!

When I saw that story come up, my first instinct was, "Well, that was expected."

 

I completely agree with LABT's notion that, while Phillips wrote his own book, there were plenty of people supplying the paper. Such a waste of talent. Such a waste of the gift of life.

GO CHIEFS !!

This week, the Chiefs are America's team.

 

Seems appropriate.... the uniform color scheme is remarkably similar to McDonalds'.

 

Yeah, I'm all for the Chiefs dropping the gold from their color scheme. Red and white would be just fine on their own.

 

"Gold" is being kind....that's straight up yellow, my man! I would not mind if they toned down the yellow a bit (or more than a bit). I am not a huge fan of teams dropping or changing colors once they are set, and the Chiefs are pretty much set with their color scheme. I do not mind tweaks, though, and that yellow could use a tweak.

 

I have seen a few in the unigeek world suggest they should drop gold and expand on black trim (the argument being the helmet logo has black trim and the Chiefs have one of the better looking helmets in the league.... which I agree with, but would rather them use a gray facemask than a white one). I am, not, though, in favor of them going to a red/black image. I think black is overdone in sports as is and red/black is definitely associated with the Falcons.

 

While I am on the subject of KC unis... I really hate it when they wear red/white/white. They look so much better in red/white/red. No NFL team should ever go mono anything, however, so red/red/red makes me see exactly that. Leave mono schemes to the high schools!

GO CHIEFS !!

This week, the Chiefs are America's team.

 

Seems appropriate.... the uniform color scheme is remarkably similar to McDonalds'.

Kroenke pretty well forced himself out of St. Louis by trashing the city in his relocation request to the NFL.

 

Mayor Francis Slay called him and the NFL "pathetic", remarking that, "they were not being truthful" and "we were being led on."

 

Other St. Louis natives in the spotlight have made their thoughts known publicly, from NHL goaltender Ben Bishop, who chirped Stan Kroenke through Twitter after shutting out the billionaire's NHL team that night, to Andy Cohen, who gave Kroenke the double finger salute on his Bravo program.

 

Then there was Joe Buck, son of St. Louis legend Jack Buck and current national broadcaster for Fox Sports, who spoke out on the issue on Twitter recently:

 

"Suck the life out of a team, run it down, raise prices, then say it isn't supported and leave. Great example for the NFL to celebrate JOKE!"

 

As for the sports fans of St. Louis themselves, they've made their thoughts known as well:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMflpOLq4M

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyPZ2d14Iyw

 

In all, as a St. Louisan and sports fan, I'm sad to the Rams go, but the ownership did everything it possibly could to alienate a city renowned for having a loyal, dedicated fan base. From making the team an unwatchable comedy-of-intentional-errors suckfest for an entire decade, to throwing the city of St. Louis and the fans that patronized the team under the bus.

 

For me personally, I always wanted to support the Rams, but the NFL's slimey attitudes made for a very conflicting kind of support from me. Now that the team is gone, and has pissed all over my city, I can firmly say that the NFL is a disgusting joke of an operation. Too interested in marginal profit returns to deal with the on-field injury and concussion crisis in it's sport, and the off-field antics of it's stars.

 

f**k the NFL. f**k Stan Kroenke.

 

Now St. Louis can actually spend the money it was going to waste on a new stadium on something more important. And there are no end to the things that need funding in St. Louis. Public education is an embarrassment, as is mass transit in the area. Plus you can use some of that stadium money on other entertainment items that will bring in better return on investment. I saw someone advocating for the country's largest aquarium to be put on the shore of the Mississippi River for less thant he cost of a new stadium. And in their calculations, it estimated that it'd bring in millions more in revenue for the city than an NFL team. And then, of course, we could always use this money to bring in more, and better, law enforcement, and training programs, so that we can avoid a mar on our city again like the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson/Grand Jury fiasco/Robert McCullouch joke. Of course, now we're entering the realm of politics, and that's best left for SOCN.

 

Edit to include stuff from Joe Buck.

 

St. Louis went down the same road with Bill Bidwell and the football Cardinals. He bolted from St. Louis for Arizona in 1987 with the apparent promise of a new stadium in the desert.... the team moved into that new stadium in 2005. That's right, the Arizona Cardinals played in a freaking college football stadium for 18 years after leaving St. Louis. That's a bit of karma, I guess, that Bidwell moved away with the dream of a shiny new stadium and somehow got duped for nearly 2 decades.

 

And Bidwell did basically the same thing Kroenke did.... he blamed St. Louis rather than his own inept performance as an owner for some of the financials (keeping in mind the football Cardinals were also very well supported in St. Louis). It was not until Bidwell's son took over the team that the Cardinals were no longer a laughing stock in the league.

 

At least this time Kroenke actually has a stadium to go to. He's got that over Bidwell.

 

But, yeah, St. Louis has been down this road before and it should not go down it again.

 

I am a native St. Louisan and I will be blunt.... St. Louis needs to tell the NFL to go f*** itself. St. Louis is a medium market city that can and will support the NFL, but will always be at the mercy of threats to move if the club that resides there does not get a new stadium every ten or so years. That is complete and utter bulls***. The only thing that separates St. Louis from the other NFL aspiring cities like Salt Lake, Oklahoma City, Portland, etc. is that St. Louis has had an NFL club and has proven it can support one. I do believe those other cities can support one, too, by the way. But the number of franchises is finite and the NFL just plays these cities as a means to get better deals in their current markets. It is extortion, pure and simple.

A couple of comments:

 

1) This is not really that different from what a lot of other businesses do.

 

2) The owner has every right to maximize the value of his or her investment.

 

3) I agree that cities should tell the NFL to f**k off...doing so, as Minnesota proved, is almost impossible, even though every financial analysis shows that it's a f***ed up deal.

 

I guess I just expect more of a symbiosis from a sports owner and the city, like what the Cardinals and Blues owners are all about in the city. Both own the team, but both try to use the team to make the city better. By making the city better, you increase the value of your own property. It's win-win, as opposed to win-while-being-an-asshole.

 

I would suggest this.... expecting it is a nice thought, but it's actually a naive thought (I don't mean that in a harsh way).

 

The baseball Cardinals have a very unique situation in Bill DeWitt. He is a St. Louis native and has some business ties to the city, but, in fact, operates out of Ohio and has more ties to that river city than St. Louis. But he understands the Cardinals brand as it relates to Missouri. He remains committed to St. Louis because he understands the benefit it brings him.

 

The Blues went through their own ownership s***storm. You might be too young to remember it, but the team went through a series of owners who put the club in a precarious position. Some were committed to St. Louis, some not. One owner flirted with letting the team move to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. That is not a joke. The Saskatoon Blues nearly happened.

PS Enos Stanley Kroenke loves to tell people he is a native of Missouri named for baseball Cardinal legends Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial. Really, though, his baseball name should be Peter Ty Kroenke, for Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. Rose for being a liar and a gambler. Cobb for being an all around SOB and a**hole. I do agree that Kroenke sucks.

And he should change his name to Bonds because that's what cities have to sell to attract his franchise.

 

Although that's not really true in this case. From what I've heard, he's building the stadium himself, so at least he's not putting it on the taxpayers, if I've heard correctly.

 

Agreed. I will give Kroenke that. His stadium is more his own than publicly financed (although I suspect the project is laden with tax incentives.... I would have to look that up.... but he's a Walmart guy, that's their game).

 

My point, though, is he preached his ties and loyalties to Missouri, but clearly had none. He's a schmuck.

Kroenke pretty well forced himself out of St. Louis by trashing the city in his relocation request to the NFL.

 

Mayor Francis Slay called him and the NFL "pathetic", remarking that, "they were not being truthful" and "we were being led on."

 

Other St. Louis natives in the spotlight have made their thoughts known publicly, from NHL goaltender Ben Bishop, who chirped Stan Kroenke through Twitter after shutting out the billionaire's NHL team that night, to Andy Cohen, who gave Kroenke the double finger salute on his Bravo program.

 

Then there was Joe Buck, son of St. Louis legend Jack Buck and current national broadcaster for Fox Sports, who spoke out on the issue on Twitter recently:

 

"Suck the life out of a team, run it down, raise prices, then say it isn't supported and leave. Great example for the NFL to celebrate JOKE!"

 

As for the sports fans of St. Louis themselves, they've made their thoughts known as well:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMflpOLq4M

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyPZ2d14Iyw

 

In all, as a St. Louisan and sports fan, I'm sad to the Rams go, but the ownership did everything it possibly could to alienate a city renowned for having a loyal, dedicated fan base. From making the team an unwatchable comedy-of-intentional-errors suckfest for an entire decade, to throwing the city of St. Louis and the fans that patronized the team under the bus.

 

For me personally, I always wanted to support the Rams, but the NFL's slimey attitudes made for a very conflicting kind of support from me. Now that the team is gone, and has pissed all over my city, I can firmly say that the NFL is a disgusting joke of an operation. Too interested in marginal profit returns to deal with the on-field injury and concussion crisis in it's sport, and the off-field antics of it's stars.

 

f**k the NFL. f**k Stan Kroenke.

 

Now St. Louis can actually spend the money it was going to waste on a new stadium on something more important. And there are no end to the things that need funding in St. Louis. Public education is an embarrassment, as is mass transit in the area. Plus you can use some of that stadium money on other entertainment items that will bring in better return on investment. I saw someone advocating for the country's largest aquarium to be put on the shore of the Mississippi River for less thant he cost of a new stadium. And in their calculations, it estimated that it'd bring in millions more in revenue for the city than an NFL team. And then, of course, we could always use this money to bring in more, and better, law enforcement, and training programs, so that we can avoid a mar on our city again like the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson/Grand Jury fiasco/Robert McCullouch joke. Of course, now we're entering the realm of politics, and that's best left for SOCN.

 

Edit to include stuff from Joe Buck.

 

St. Louis went down the same road with Bill Bidwell and the football Cardinals. He bolted from St. Louis for Arizona in 1987 with the apparent promise of a new stadium in the desert.... the team moved into that new stadium in 2005. That's right, the Arizona Cardinals played in a freaking college football stadium for 18 years after leaving St. Louis. That's a bit of karma, I guess, that Bidwell moved away with the dream of a shiny new stadium and somehow got duped for nearly 2 decades.

 

And Bidwell did basically the same thing Kroenke did.... he blamed St. Louis rather than his own inept performance as an owner for some of the financials (keeping in mind the football Cardinals were also very well supported in St. Louis). It was not until Bidwell's son took over the team that the Cardinals were no longer a laughing stock in the league.

 

At least this time Kroenke actually has a stadium to go to. He's got that over Bidwell.

 

But, yeah, St. Louis has been down this road before and it should not go down it again.

 

I am a native St. Louisan and I will be blunt.... St. Louis needs to tell the NFL to go f*** itself. St. Louis is a medium market city that can and will support the NFL, but will always be at the mercy of threats to move if the club that resides there does not get a new stadium every ten or so years. That is complete and utter bulls***. The only thing that separates St. Louis from the other NFL aspiring cities like Salt Lake, Oklahoma City, Portland, etc. is that St. Louis has had an NFL club and has proven it can support one. I do believe those other cities can support one, too, by the way. But the number of franchises is finite and the NFL just plays these cities as a means to get better deals in their current markets. It is extortion, pure and simple.

A couple of comments:

 

1) This is not really that different from what a lot of other businesses do.

 

2) The owner has every right to maximize the value of his or her investment.

 

3) I agree that cities should tell the NFL to f**k off...doing so, as Minnesota proved, is almost impossible, even though every financial analysis shows that it's a f***ed up deal.

 

I don't disagree with points 1 and 2. My beef, though, would be that these same owners play to their loyalty to a market, their love for their fans, and their commitment to their community..... which is actually just a steaming pile of BS.

 

I would agree the fans are the ones at fault for this. One, they buy into the owners' and league's lines of BS. Two, they continually pony up taxpayer money to placate the league. If the cities all collectively agreed to tell the owners (in all sports) to build their own venues, we might actually get somewhere.

The Chargers piece is interesting. They have a year to work out a deal with Kroenke in Inglewood. The question, I think, is will Kroenke play nice with the second team venue sharing model or, now that he has what he wants, will he dig in his heels? What motivation would he have to share the market? Conventional wisdom says not much, but he is also trying to create a larger entertainment type complex and he might see the second team as a way to drive interest in hotels, restaurants, etc. And the reality is he did design his Inglewood facility with the potential for two franchises. He might be willing to play nice.

His motivation is simple. His team only fills the stadium for 8 games a year. He doesn't get any revenue from the 8 Sundays that the Rams are on the road. Even though the Chargers and Raiders probably feel pimped on this one. One of them will end up in LA. I simply don't see SD or Oakland getting enough community money, I mean support, to build their own stadiums.

 

On top of this, I can't think of any other major city that could cough up money for an NFL stadium if Oakland or SD wanted to move. Portland, San Antonio, Oklahoma City? Too small. Vegas? Ewwww too much gambling for the NFL. St. Louis will have to wait quite a while for another chance, if they even get one.

 

Another advantage of the Rams/Chargers/Oakland mix is that they don't have to switch divisions or conferences. The NFC divisions work out almost perfectly location-wise, with the exception of Dallas in the East. But that won't change. The AFC needs rearrangment. Move Dolphins to South, Colts to North and Ravens to East. Make it happen Rog.

 

True enough. But I do smell expansion sometime down the road. Jax moves to London, but Jax doesn't get another team. St. Louis gets a team out of pity. Toronto gets one for market share. Maybe Mexico City, too. Another one or two (depending upon Mexico City) of sucker cities willing to go down the road of NFL extortion. Roger wants his global 36 team league.

There won't be a london team. Too far away to deal with a full season. I could see Buffalo moving to Toronto. Mexico is too third world country-ish for an NFL team. Drug lords shooting up the stadium wouldn't be a pretty sight.

 

Goodell covets a team in London. That's why there are currently regular season games there. Yes, it would be a scheduling nightmare to have a team play all 8 home games in England, particularly for divisional games, but that's not something Roger gives a damn about. I fully believe London is on the table. Shad Kahn's other sports interests in London, combined with the terrible realities of Jax, make them the likely team. Besides, when have the owners and league caved to common sense?

 

The Bills to Toronto died when the Pegulas bought the team. The only way the NFL goes to Toronto now is another team's relocation or expansion.

 

With Mexico, the NFL has already flirted with this. There have been multiple pre-season games in Azteca and one regular season game. Sure, the last one was in 2005 because of perceived fears of safety in Mexico, but those fears are actually unfounded. All those incidents of drug violence? Are they really all that different than the drug and gang violence in the United States? And, by the way, why is there drug violence in Mexico? Are the drugs being bought in Mexico, or are they being transported to the United States? The NFL is also wildly popular in Mexico. The market will draw the league's interest. I travel in and around Mexico from time to time. I am actually more nervous in areas of Houston than I ever am in Mexico.

PS Enos Stanley Kroenke loves to tell people he is a native of Missouri named for baseball Cardinal legends Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial. Really, though, his baseball name should be Peter Ty Kroenke, for Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. Rose for being a liar and a gambler. Cobb for being an all around SOB and a**hole. I do agree that Kroenke sucks.

Kroenke pretty well forced himself out of St. Louis by trashing the city in his relocation request to the NFL.

 

Mayor Francis Slay called him and the NFL "pathetic", remarking that, "they were not being truthful" and "we were being led on."

 

Other St. Louis natives in the spotlight have made their thoughts known publicly, from NHL goaltender Ben Bishop, who chirped Stan Kroenke through Twitter after shutting out the billionaire's NHL team that night, to Andy Cohen, who gave Kroenke the double finger salute on his Bravo program.

 

Then there was Joe Buck, son of St. Louis legend Jack Buck and current national broadcaster for Fox Sports, who spoke out on the issue on Twitter recently:

 

"Suck the life out of a team, run it down, raise prices, then say it isn't supported and leave. Great example for the NFL to celebrate JOKE!"

 

As for the sports fans of St. Louis themselves, they've made their thoughts known as well:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMflpOLq4M

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyPZ2d14Iyw

 

In all, as a St. Louisan and sports fan, I'm sad to the Rams go, but the ownership did everything it possibly could to alienate a city renowned for having a loyal, dedicated fan base. From making the team an unwatchable comedy-of-intentional-errors suckfest for an entire decade, to throwing the city of St. Louis and the fans that patronized the team under the bus.

 

For me personally, I always wanted to support the Rams, but the NFL's slimey attitudes made for a very conflicting kind of support from me. Now that the team is gone, and has pissed all over my city, I can firmly say that the NFL is a disgusting joke of an operation. Too interested in marginal profit returns to deal with the on-field injury and concussion crisis in it's sport, and the off-field antics of it's stars.

 

f**k the NFL. f**k Stan Kroenke.

 

Now St. Louis can actually spend the money it was going to waste on a new stadium on something more important. And there are no end to the things that need funding in St. Louis. Public education is an embarrassment, as is mass transit in the area. Plus you can use some of that stadium money on other entertainment items that will bring in better return on investment. I saw someone advocating for the country's largest aquarium to be put on the shore of the Mississippi River for less thant he cost of a new stadium. And in their calculations, it estimated that it'd bring in millions more in revenue for the city than an NFL team. And then, of course, we could always use this money to bring in more, and better, law enforcement, and training programs, so that we can avoid a mar on our city again like the Michael Brown/Darren Wilson/Grand Jury fiasco/Robert McCullouch joke. Of course, now we're entering the realm of politics, and that's best left for SOCN.

 

Edit to include stuff from Joe Buck.

 

St. Louis went down the same road with Bill Bidwell and the football Cardinals. He bolted from St. Louis for Arizona in 1987 with the apparent promise of a new stadium in the desert.... the team moved into that new stadium in 2005. That's right, the Arizona Cardinals played in a freaking college football stadium for 18 years after leaving St. Louis. That's a bit of karma, I guess, that Bidwell moved away with the dream of a shiny new stadium and somehow got duped for nearly 2 decades.

 

And Bidwell did basically the same thing Kroenke did.... he blamed St. Louis rather than his own inept performance as an owner for some of the financials (keeping in mind the football Cardinals were also very well supported in St. Louis). It was not until Bidwell's son took over the team that the Cardinals were no longer a laughing stock in the league.

 

At least this time Kroenke actually has a stadium to go to. He's got that over Bidwell.

 

But, yeah, St. Louis has been down this road before and it should not go down it again.

 

I am a native St. Louisan and I will be blunt.... St. Louis needs to tell the NFL to go f*** itself. St. Louis is a medium market city that can and will support the NFL, but will always be at the mercy of threats to move if the club that resides there does not get a new stadium every ten or so years. That is complete and utter bulls***. The only thing that separates St. Louis from the other NFL aspiring cities like Salt Lake, Oklahoma City, Portland, etc. is that St. Louis has had an NFL club and has proven it can support one. I do believe those other cities can support one, too, by the way. But the number of franchises is finite and the NFL just plays these cities as a means to get better deals in their current markets. It is extortion, pure and simple.

The Chargers piece is interesting. They have a year to work out a deal with Kroenke in Inglewood. The question, I think, is will Kroenke play nice with the second team venue sharing model or, now that he has what he wants, will he dig in his heels? What motivation would he have to share the market? Conventional wisdom says not much, but he is also trying to create a larger entertainment type complex and he might see the second team as a way to drive interest in hotels, restaurants, etc. And the reality is he did design his Inglewood facility with the potential for two franchises. He might be willing to play nice.

His motivation is simple. His team only fills the stadium for 8 games a year. He doesn't get any revenue from the 8 Sundays that the Rams are on the road. Even though the Chargers and Raiders probably feel pimped on this one. One of them will end up in LA. I simply don't see SD or Oakland getting enough community money, I mean support, to build their own stadiums.

 

On top of this, I can't think of any other major city that could cough up money for an NFL stadium if Oakland or SD wanted to move. Portland, San Antonio, Oklahoma City? Too small. Vegas? Ewwww too much gambling for the NFL. St. Louis will have to wait quite a while for another chance, if they even get one.

 

Another advantage of the Rams/Chargers/Oakland mix is that they don't have to switch divisions or conferences. The NFC divisions work out almost perfectly location-wise, with the exception of Dallas in the East. But that won't change. The AFC needs rearrangment. Move Dolphins to South, Colts to North and Ravens to East. Make it happen Rog.

 

True enough. But I do smell expansion sometime down the road. Jax moves to London, but Jax doesn't get another team. St. Louis gets a team out of pity. Toronto gets one for market share. Maybe Mexico City, too. Another one or two (depending upon Mexico City) of sucker cities willing to go down the road of NFL extortion. Roger wants his global 36 team league.

 

I think the talent is spread thin enough with enough divisions having mediocre crap in first place. I really and sincerely hope they do NOT expand the league any further.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am not in favor of expansion and agree it is a terrible, terrible idea. Roger, though, wants that cash.

The Chargers piece is interesting. They have a year to work out a deal with Kroenke in Inglewood. The question, I think, is will Kroenke play nice with the second team venue sharing model or, now that he has what he wants, will he dig in his heels? What motivation would he have to share the market? Conventional wisdom says not much, but he is also trying to create a larger entertainment type complex and he might see the second team as a way to drive interest in hotels, restaurants, etc. And the reality is he did design his Inglewood facility with the potential for two franchises. He might be willing to play nice.

His motivation is simple. His team only fills the stadium for 8 games a year. He doesn't get any revenue from the 8 Sundays that the Rams are on the road. Even though the Chargers and Raiders probably feel pimped on this one. One of them will end up in LA. I simply don't see SD or Oakland getting enough community money, I mean support, to build their own stadiums.

 

On top of this, I can't think of any other major city that could cough up money for an NFL stadium if Oakland or SD wanted to move. Portland, San Antonio, Oklahoma City? Too small. Vegas? Ewwww too much gambling for the NFL. St. Louis will have to wait quite a while for another chance, if they even get one.

 

Another advantage of the Rams/Chargers/Oakland mix is that they don't have to switch divisions or conferences. The NFC divisions work out almost perfectly location-wise, with the exception of Dallas in the East. But that won't change. The AFC needs rearrangment. Move Dolphins to South, Colts to North and Ravens to East. Make it happen Rog.

 

True enough. But I do smell expansion sometime down the road. Jax moves to London, but Jax doesn't get another team. St. Louis gets a team out of pity. Toronto gets one for market share. Maybe Mexico City, too. Another one or two (depending upon Mexico City) of sucker cities willing to go down the road of NFL extortion. Roger wants his global 36 team league.

Without question, yes. But often in waves depending upon my genre mood. Lately I have been playing the hell out of the Bottle Rockets. But various Rush stuff is always there and I click over to it regularly enough.

The Chargers piece is interesting. They have a year to work out a deal with Kroenke in Inglewood. The question, I think, is will Kroenke play nice with the second team venue sharing model or, now that he has what he wants, will he dig in his heels? What motivation would he have to share the market? Conventional wisdom says not much, but he is also trying to create a larger entertainment type complex and he might see the second team as a way to drive interest in hotels, restaurants, etc. And the reality is he did design his Inglewood facility with the potential for two franchises. He might be willing to play nice.

 

The flip side of the coin is perhaps the threat of an imminent move for the Chargers will motivate San Diego to finance a build to keep the team further south.

 

And the Raiders are really still in limbo. Sure, they will get some cash to support a stadium venture in Oakland (or I assume a nearby area), but it is not really certain the area has the money or overall interest to pony up the money to build (San Diego seems more likely to cave to the pressure first). But, then again, perhaps the threat of the green light to move if a stadium is not built, along with the reported promise to give the Raiders first option in Inglewood if the Chargers can not make a deal will motivate Oakland to build.

 

From a very Machiavellian point of view, Goodell played this one well. Kroenke gets his move. The Chargers could still conceivably remain in San Diego and the Raiders could still conceivably remain in Oakland. Roger could possibly get three shiny new stadiums, two of which would be very heavily publicly funded purely by way of extortion.

Shame about Maclin, I hope he's OK as he was a good lad for Philly & I wish him well.

 

I was surprised to hear he's day to day and didn't tear his ACL. On TV he definitely had that look of someone who knew his season was over.

 

Possibly he heard the dreaded pop and felt pain in his leg and assumed the worst. A high ankle sprain is an awfully painful thing. At the same time, I am not necessarily buying the high ankle sprain as legit. KC is playing NE.... Reid may be borrowing a page from the Belichick misinformation playbook. What better way to make NE wonder which team they will face? Pretend Maclin may play and force NE to have two sets of plans. I would not be surprised if Maclin suits up, but never plays.