Jesus Christ! Now the Rams have Swine Flu!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/nfl/wires/12/17/2020.ap.fbn.rams.swine.flu.1st.ld.writethru.0230/

Damn... What else can go wrong this season??? I swear, in 30 years of watching the Rams, this is the worst season I have ever seen! Injuries galore, horrible QB play, just one WR who is a true #2, a psycho guard, and now the Swine Flu shuts down our practices for the Houston game! I am becoming certain that we will have the #1 pick this year. I have little reason to doubt that we will finish this year with just 1 victory. Tampa will probably win again before we do. This is truly dreadful.

If my Rams defeat Houston, Coach Kubiac will be fired that evening. He won't see the morning in as head coach of the Texans.

Have a look at our injured reserve list:

1. Free Safety #21 Oshiomogho Atogwe
2. Left Guard #63 Jacob Bell
3. Wide Receiver #14 Keenan Burton,
4. Defensive Tackle #90 Adam Carriker
5. Wide Receiver #19 Laurent Robinson (who used to wear #11)
6. Quarter Back #10 Marc Bulger (he is not actually on the IR but should be)

That is 6 key starters with a 7th (Incognito) just released this week. That is just about 32% of the starting lineup out with injuries as we face the Texans. Some of the best players on the team on that list; particularly Atogwe and Carriker.

And now the dreaded H1N1 Swine Flu! Horrible!

One thing we should be aware of and take into consideration is the conspiracy theory known as 'pack it in for the season'. There are people close to the NFL who will tell you that it is wise to pack it in for the season if you are suffering a massively botched loosing campaign as we are.

Under this policy, you place as many starters on the IR as you can. You release trouble makers. You bring in scrubs who won't be with the team next year. You start the worst and cheapest team you can. You salary cap is positively impacted by these moves. You don't waste good men wrecking your draft position in meaningless games. You effectively throw the rest of the season, guarantying your draft position, and enhancing your free-agency money pool.

If you need a franchise QB, you usually can't draft too high. Your season ticket holders may never forgive you for packing it in, and calling it quits, but if you are planning to move the team anyway...

As a quick aside, I personally don't believe we need a #1 pick to acquire a franchise QB in this 2010 draft, but it is nice to be certain you can get what you need. I think the best prospects are going to be found in the 2nd round or later. If Jevan Snead does not declare for the draft, I would not use my #1 for a QB if I am Devany. I might well take Ndamukong Suh.

There is another conspiracy theory out there which says the Rams are intentionally bad this season because:

1. The Rams want to fall out of the top 25% of NFL stadium revenues so they can break the lease on the Edward Jones Dome.
2. Georgia's kids have even less money that she did.
3. Georgia's kids have more financial problems than she did.
4. Devany knew he needed a total rebuild from scratch

The good Doctor on the NFL Network recently told us to blow up the ship. I think he didn't keep up with events during the off-season of 2009. We blew up the ship at that time. The explosion occurred sometime between March and April of 2009. What you are looking at is the aftermath of that explosion. This is the wreckage of the Titanic sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic.

We are going to try to raise the Titanic in 2010.

One final word: If the Rams really have confirmed cases of H1N1 on the team, why are we taking the field against the Texans? We could spread the virus to the entire NFL! We should just yield/concede the victory to Houston and not take the field. This is a situation where the health of the league is at stake as we move rapidly towards the playoffs. Certainly, we Rams have nothing to gain by taking the field against Houston, especially if we have already packed it in for the season.

Do you want to know why the Rams are moving back to Los Angeles?

I considered naming this blog entry "A tale of two moments", but this title was far too abstract. Fools might have thought it a love sonnet. Not so. Its a rational argument explaining why the Rams are moving back to Los Angeles. Some might call that a love sonnet. I don't think so.

So, I am out at lunch today. I don't have much time to eat. I have to have my car alarm looked at. It has been malfunctioning like a moefoe. I have to grab something quick and eat at SafeandSound1.com, around the corner and up the way from my apartment building. I will eat lunch while the mechanic fixes my problem.

On the road East to Canoga Park from Callabassas, I stop at Del Taco, a small MexiCali fast food chain we have here in SoCal. There is a 16-18 year old Mexican kid walking the drive through line, taking orders with a nice computerized PDA. The major chains do this at lunch to expedite orders. He asks me what I would like. I quickly place my order. I am shocked that the bill comes to $10. You know our sales tax just hit 9.75% here in Los Angeles County. Its astounding. In any case, the kid notices I am wearing the brand new 2009 edition of the Chris Long #72 Jersey in White.

He says to me "Man that's a nice jersey! My dad would love to have one of those! Do you think they are coming back?"

"I don't know, but there is a lot of talk. I suspect something is up." I reply. I wanted to guard my optimism.

The kid replies "Everybody is talking about it. My family is pretty excited. Most of the adults in my family remember going to the Ram games when they were younger."

"I'm jacked up too." I replied.

A dude honks his horn behind us. We are holding up the lunch line of cars with our conversation about the Rams returning to Los Angeles. This all took place in the West San Fernando valley, about 30 miles or so from the target zone in the city of Industry. Less, if DeBartolo builds on the site of the current Forum, or the old Hollywood race track. The date is 7/9/2009, about 5 days after Steve McNair was murdered.

I should mention that this was a full-blooded Mexican kid, from a full blooded Mexican family. These are the folks who don't watch football, according to Leigh Steinberg. He doesn't know many Mexicans. These guys were beaming with pride in the days of Joe Cap, Roman Gabriel, Anthony Munoz, Jim Plunkett, and Tom Flores. Oh did I forget Mark Sanchez?

Ad meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times is printing a very nice and nasty edgy shot at the city of St. Louis. This is a piece in the Sports Section. It is nominally about the UFC. It has a hidden agenda. After painting what rancid sport the UFC presents, the LA Times delivers the payload.

And I quote:

"Budweiser did research in St. Louis and became a UFC sponsor after learning males 18 to 34 couldn't name 10 St. Louis Rams, but could name 10 UFC fighters," he says, the Rams obviously just not the same without Georgia Frontiere.

That's a shot across the port bow. Might even have a triple enterder in there. I am trying to decide whether T.J. Simers is actually smart enough to craft a triple enterder. He is a very clever wordsmith if he did this intentionally.

So what is the significance of this? No team has been treated as badly or ignored as much by the Los Angeles Times as the Rams. They have pissed me off a few times. This is the woman scorn. This is love turned to hate. This is boycott protest. But, at the first glimmer of hope that we might get our old team back again... Pow! Shots fired to remind the the Rams organization they ain't doing so well in St. Louis.

You might say they are lighting a match. Why? We want 'em back, that's why. When the L.A. Times begins to join the murmur, an interesting moment has been reached.

I wish I could find the link... Recently, a young local sports talk dude published a blog in which he chastised Southern Californians for continuing to cheer for the Rams. He slapped the Raider fans, but only in passing. The real subject of his ire were the Ram fans. He wanted to know why the entire Hollywood Hills (where he was raised) exploded with mad cheers the very instant Mike Jones tackled Dyson on the 1 yard line early in January 2000. The mad uproar went on for some 15 to 20 minutes. "Isn't this the moral equivalent of going to the wedding of the chick who dumped you years ago?", he asked us all.

What was left unsaid was palpable. The entire tone of the piece was clear: Said sports talk dude fears that the City of Los Angeles will throw a huge ticker-tape parade if the Rams return. He wanted to bitch slap us, imposing his view that this would constitute a total capitulation humiliation if we did that.

Okay, we have been warned. Now fuck off. little buddy.

Why should this dude believe such a thing might happen her in Los Angeles? Because it is precisely what the city of Oakland did the second the Raiders returned. They went mad. They haven't regained their sanity yet. The Raiders currently enjoy the 3rd best homefield advantage, according to the NFL Network. If the Rams return, you watch L.A. go bonko. The nation is going to be shocked. You all will shake your heads in disbelief.

As I sit here on the Thursday night in July of 2009, I can tell you that the crescendo is building. The murmur is rising to more than a murmur in the background. People are jamming the drive through lines at Del Taco talking about the Rams returning. Ed Roski is a rolling out his pocket book to construct a state of the art NFL Stadium with no guarantees. If he builds it they will come. I mean both of them theys.

Honest, good people of St. Louis, we don't have anything against you. We respect and like the fact that you took care of our Rams for us. We are glad you enjoyed them as much as we did in 1999. Maybe you enjoyed it even more. We now have a brotherhood. I would propose joint custody of the kids, but you know we can't do that to them. You can watch them on TV like we did.

Next time I intend to tell you about my Apartment Manager, Anthony Daily, and my Chiropractor Dr. Gary C. Kerr who practices in the prestigious and expensive 90025 zip code. He used to crack Steve Rosenbloom's back when he was the general manager. He also worked on Jack Youngblood, Fred Dryer, Hacksaw Jack Reynolds, Nolan Cromwell, Jim Youngblood, and the incomparable Merlin Olsen.

A short blog about whether the Rams might move back to Los Angeles

There are is still considerable doubt about whether the next owners of the Rams might be interested in moving back to Los Angeles or not. I grant you that nothing is certain. It's never over until its over. It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

With this said, let's play the micro economic business management game. You are the new owner of the Rams. You just laid down $500 million of your personal wealth to purchase an NFL franchise in St. Louis. You acquired $429m additional in collateralized debt. You have acquired 100% of the stock from Dale, Lucia, and Stan. You are now the boss.

You are now mortgaged up to your eye-balls for $429 million, and you just blew all your dry investment powder. If you default, the Bank gets the team. You loose your $500 million down. Now what are you going to do?

Option 1: Keep the team in St. Louis and pay down the debt of $429 million as quickly as possible from team revenues. This means slowly. Try to get the city of St. Louis to make serious improvements in the Edward Jones Dome so that greater revenues might flow. Bleed your other business ventures for capital such that the debt can be repaid quickly.

Option 2: You see that you have the open option to move the team back to the 2nd largest market in North America, where they have a history. There you will have a new state-of-the-art convertible domed stadium in Industry California. This can all happen in 2014.

Now what are you going to do, my business manager? You make the call, knowing for certain that it's your financial ass on the line. How are you going to reduce debt, reduce risk, and optimize returns?

You know what you do? You do point #1 in the short run, and you execute point #2 in the middle of the night Jan 1, 2014. That's how you pay off the team and make it your solid asset.

You see, this is a pretty devastating question when it is phrased this simply. You know these are very rich men we are dealing with here. Most of them got that way for a reason. They are very shrewd money men. They think as serious managers would. This is the biggest single reason to fear, if you are the city of St. Louis.

There is one other factor to consider. Just about every billionaire in the billionaire's club took a haymaker to the chin in September of 2008. Just about all these guys sunk a lot of money in CDOs and MBS paper. They also held considerable stock in financials. All of these investments have gone to shit in the past 9 months. You should read the Forbes report on billionaires. Believe it or not, they are in a lot of trouble right now.

What does this mean to the Rams? It means the next guy to own the Rams is very likely to a fellow whose personal assets are hurting right now. Said billionaire has such a deep love for the sport that he just cannot resist the irrational temptation to buy this team, even despite the fact that he can ill-afford to do so right now.

Consider this my friends and fellow Ram fans.