Fansided

Rams leave St. Louis, a city that never had a chance

By Matt Verderame

Oct 18, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; General view of the peristyle end of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before the NCAA football game between the Colorado Buffaloes against the Southern California Trojans. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 18, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; General view of the peristyle end of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before the NCAA football game between the Colorado Buffaloes against the Southern California Trojans. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /
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In the history books of the National Football League, it will eventually say that the Los Angeles Rams made a brief mistake and moved to St. Louis, only to return home for their legions of starved fans in the City of Angels.

The history books will be wrong, but that is always the case. Time has a distinct way of distorting once clear images, making you see the picture that best fits a tightly constructed narrative. In this case, the Rams played in Los Angeles from 1946-94 and then moved to St. Louis, filling the void left by the Cardinals, who bolted town following the strike-shortened 1987 campaign. History will then smear St. Louis, saying the city was not supportive enough to keep the Rams in town.

While the attendance was sparse over the final decade of Rams football in St. Louis, so were the wins. The Edward Jones Dome was a pit in the middle of a crumbling city, but the fans had no control over that. In their 21 years within the city limits of St. Louis, the Rams had four winning seasons, all coming between 1999-2003.

From 2004 until the moving trucks arrived, the Rams finished 8-8 twice but were never remotely competitive. The team was almost always without stars, having watched Marshall Faulk retire, and the trio of Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt move on. It was a one-stop shop for bad coaches, worse quarterbacks and a lousy atmosphere.

Somehow, the citizens of St. Louis are on the hook for all of this. Owner Stan Kroenke will tell you that the support was not there, and he had no choice but to move to Los Angeles, a city where he happened to have some land lying around. Nevermind that St. Louis was doing all it could to provide him with a new stadium plan, the glitz of Los Angeles was calling.

The St. Louis Cardinals have some of the best fans in all of sports, and it stands to reason many of those same folks were the ones willing to populate Rams games. The problem is that when the team is rancid for what feels like an eternity, it becomes harder to spend big money on a bad, hopeless product.

Consider this: St. Louis had NFL football for a grand total of 49 years between the Cardinals and Rams, ranging from 1960-87 and then 1995-2015. In those 49 seasons, there were eight playoff appearances and the Cardinals never once won or hosted a playoff game. The Rams had their magical Super Bowl run of 1999 and returned once more in 2001, but other than that were also a quick out. In 49 years, the Rams and Cardinals produced 15 winning seasons, and just seven campaigns with double-digit wins.

Now the Rams are off to Los Angeles, with Kroenke smiling and people in St. Louis left hating football, knowing they will never get a second chance to root for an NFL team. Unfortunately, they never got much of a first chance, either.

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