Fansided

St. Louis Mayor: No thanks to NFL after Rams debacle

By Dan Buffa

Nov 23, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; A hopeful Rams fan pleads for a stadium in Los Angeles during the Rams
Nov 23, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; A hopeful Rams fan pleads for a stadium in Los Angeles during the Rams /
facebooktwitterreddit

St. Louis does not want another NFL team.

Thanks, NFL, but no thanks. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told the St. Louis Business Journal today that the city has no intention of welcoming another NFL team.

After the way NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the money-hungry mongrels treated Slay, task force leaders Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz, along with the fans in the Rams debacle, why would they? In the unlikely scenario Mark Davis wants to move the Oakland Raiders (the prom night runners-up Tuesday, given a check and rain check), the NFL wouldn’t let it happen in St. Louis. I believe Goodell would go into the Walmart sized NFL vault of cash and fund a new stadium in Oakland over the Raiders coming to St. Louis. Kudos to Slay for jumping the gun and shutting this down. Hard and fast.

Peacock and Blitz did everything the NFL asked to help launch a new stadium in St. Louis the past 15 months. They jumped through flaming hoops and met the NFL’s demands. In  the end, instead of giving St. Louis the extra $100 million to help complete their plan, they decided to give San Diego and Oakland $100 million each to stay in their current stadiums for at least another season.

Check that again. Instead of completing a stadium plan located in the top sports city in the country (thank you Wall Street Journal), Goodell paid off the other California teams to stay quiet and play football for another season.

It’s fair to bash Stan Kroenke for pulling the rug out on the fans in St. Louis. It’s even more righteous to call the NFL on its joker skills. Why not just tell St. Louis the Rams are leaving for greener pastures last year. Why show them the knife, put it away and take it back out at the last minute? Makes zero sense.

Slay was right to debunk that rumor of another stadium or team. Why go through it again? Maybe I’m just a St. Louis native emotionally ranting here. Maybe not. I accepted the finality of a Rams departure months ago. It was confirmed last week with Goodell’s report. Still, seeing the manner with which the NFL duped my city makes me sick.

Come 2016, I’m not entirely sure I will be watching NFL action. Why fund an organization that takes without giving?

Home/Los Angeles Rams