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Retroram52
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Having lived through seven plus decades of Rams football, I have personally seen the behavior patterns of this franchise through good and bad owners and good and very bad teams. The present owner has very similar behavioral patterns to Dan Reeves and Robert Irsay, both who owned the Rams primarily for the money. Kroneke doesn't say much, remains in the shadow, and allows what he considers football people to run the show. Reeves and Irsay didn't do that but would periodically inject their brand of insanity into football decisions that had the sense of a maggot in your food. Kroneke doesn't appear to know enough about football to even make excellent decisons about his staff and he sure as hell has provided no focus for this club or at least in his silence it is not very clear to the rest of them what this team is about.
I also have lived through a great owner in Carroll Rosenbloom when we were the class of the NFL for nearly 12 years when every level of the franchise was run properly and succinctly and players wanted to play for the Rams. We had talent three deep multiple years and GM Don Klosterman was a master at recognizing talent and manipulating the NFL draft to gain maximum advantage in all categories of player and team analysis that translated into a powerhouse of a football team. When the Rams came to town, people were afraid. Under Rosenbloom's fierce yet compassionate direction, the Rams took seven consecutive NFC West championshops and were periennial favorites to go to the big dance. The team under his ownership contributed to the game's integrity and they had a team focus of one goal and that was to win a chamionship as the LA Rams despite being paid to play a kids game.
Fast forward to today. After nearly 15 years of inepititude and ownership incompetency of the highest order by a complete idiot, bubbleheaded, frikin buffoon of an owner, save a stretch of three years under a truely remarkable coach in Dick Vermiel and at last a modern-day championship with a remarkable team, this team once again has become a emulator of those 15 years of complete incompetency and inepititude to defy logic and the imagination. Mystifying is a better adjective. The team simply is a mess.
In a word, this team has no heart, soul, or purpose. It is listless, confused, and beyond recognition of a franchise that has no connection to its glory days. It has become for sometime now and object of derision and mockery rivaling the present-day Raiders as the rest of the NFL shakes and wags its collective heads at just how easily it is to play and beat these fools masquerading as coaches and NFL caliber players. We are the laughingstock of the NFL; Now the home of some of the most obscure and weird negative records the NFL has witnessed since they started keeping official records in 1970. We set two last evening.
All the while, the fans have endured this almost default behavior of finding ways to lose games they appear to be winning hoping for the return of those three recent years where all of us couldn't believe our eyes that in the last seconds of a Superbowl, we got to scream as loud as we could to release years of repressed anger, rage, and waiting for the vaunted Superbowl Trophy because indeed it was OURS. I remember standing in my living room yelling so loud, the neighbors dogs were barking with complete disbelief and shock yet unbridled joy that all those years of defeat and coming up short when it meant something special to be a Rams fan.
Being a Rams fans takes courage to endure this sort of humiliation and the weekly reminder that the hope of returning to that podium hoisting another trophy still eludes us even with the myriad of hopes provided for us by yet another salesman of positive outcomes that intuitively we know as fans may fall short like soooo many times before. We hear the rhetoric with each new administration and we all roll our eyes knowing that unless there is some positive signs of continued progress, we are going to be fooled again by yet another salesman selling us bullshit repackaged in a different container.
What happened last night is both/and. It is both the result of a 15 years of an ingrained mental default losing culture that is so defiant at being eradicated that many of us question whether it can ever be fixed no matter who the magician-du-jour is. And it is a function of adding so many new players every year as to defy the very stability needed to eradicte the very cancer that still plagues this franchise. Teams that are rebuilding must go through growing pains of which we seem to be stuck because our player turnover rate is so high because we find complete dopes to begin with. Grwoing pians implies progress beyond massive player turnover with the goal of winning the big one again. WE never get out of the rut at leat not in the last 10 years or so. WE are stuck in perpetual rebuild mode.
To break this stucknes, what is required begins at the top. It is a good business model both for business and football for the owner to state what he/she wants for the franchise, hire the right people, and get out of the way. But what isn't a good model is for the owner to be a jellyfish with no backbone and not to convey much of anything except the bottom line. Kroneke has provided no direction or goal, he has not made clear his mission in winning as a culture, and he has never stated pubically that he wants to win like say the Wellington Family or Robert Kraft in New England. Kroneke is like a bad cough or rash. You know its there, you just wish it would go away. All he ahs transmitted is a losing culture that he was part of when teh Queen Idiot was running this glorified dog and pony show.
Although Kroneke hired Snisher, he apparently has done little to articulate what he wants from them and left to their devices, we get this scatter-brained almost schizophrenic result that everyone just cannot believe their eyes. Something like we all witness last evening. This conflagaration of j.v. high school football mixed with professional level players and coaches getting schooled on the fundamentals of the game and snickered at when even multiple blitzes failed to reach the opposing QB ALL NIGHT LONG!!! This took place in a stadium that doesn't even have the team colors on the seats and more of the oppositon fans show up than the team's in a shit hole of a building that sends a message embodied by a completely spineless, overpaid QB standing on the sidelines, collecting an overpriced paycheck, and spitting sunflower seeds on teh fake grass like he has a no cares in the world. You don't find that sort of shit even at Raiders or Browns games.
Coupled with failed drafts for 15 years and coaches who are selling one thing and producing another and you have what we witnessed last night and will probably see again for the next ten weeks. Get used to it Rams fans because unless this owner takes the reins of his own franchise and begins a new vision that provides the basis for a winning culture by establishing and fostering an environment for a team to have a heart, soul, and a goal of winning, little will change except for that once-in-a-100 years happenstance when we again will luck out and hoist another Superbowl trophy.
Afterall, even a blind squirrel stumbles onto a nut once and awhile!
I also have lived through a great owner in Carroll Rosenbloom when we were the class of the NFL for nearly 12 years when every level of the franchise was run properly and succinctly and players wanted to play for the Rams. We had talent three deep multiple years and GM Don Klosterman was a master at recognizing talent and manipulating the NFL draft to gain maximum advantage in all categories of player and team analysis that translated into a powerhouse of a football team. When the Rams came to town, people were afraid. Under Rosenbloom's fierce yet compassionate direction, the Rams took seven consecutive NFC West championshops and were periennial favorites to go to the big dance. The team under his ownership contributed to the game's integrity and they had a team focus of one goal and that was to win a chamionship as the LA Rams despite being paid to play a kids game.
Fast forward to today. After nearly 15 years of inepititude and ownership incompetency of the highest order by a complete idiot, bubbleheaded, frikin buffoon of an owner, save a stretch of three years under a truely remarkable coach in Dick Vermiel and at last a modern-day championship with a remarkable team, this team once again has become a emulator of those 15 years of complete incompetency and inepititude to defy logic and the imagination. Mystifying is a better adjective. The team simply is a mess.
In a word, this team has no heart, soul, or purpose. It is listless, confused, and beyond recognition of a franchise that has no connection to its glory days. It has become for sometime now and object of derision and mockery rivaling the present-day Raiders as the rest of the NFL shakes and wags its collective heads at just how easily it is to play and beat these fools masquerading as coaches and NFL caliber players. We are the laughingstock of the NFL; Now the home of some of the most obscure and weird negative records the NFL has witnessed since they started keeping official records in 1970. We set two last evening.
All the while, the fans have endured this almost default behavior of finding ways to lose games they appear to be winning hoping for the return of those three recent years where all of us couldn't believe our eyes that in the last seconds of a Superbowl, we got to scream as loud as we could to release years of repressed anger, rage, and waiting for the vaunted Superbowl Trophy because indeed it was OURS. I remember standing in my living room yelling so loud, the neighbors dogs were barking with complete disbelief and shock yet unbridled joy that all those years of defeat and coming up short when it meant something special to be a Rams fan.
Being a Rams fans takes courage to endure this sort of humiliation and the weekly reminder that the hope of returning to that podium hoisting another trophy still eludes us even with the myriad of hopes provided for us by yet another salesman of positive outcomes that intuitively we know as fans may fall short like soooo many times before. We hear the rhetoric with each new administration and we all roll our eyes knowing that unless there is some positive signs of continued progress, we are going to be fooled again by yet another salesman selling us bullshit repackaged in a different container.
What happened last night is both/and. It is both the result of a 15 years of an ingrained mental default losing culture that is so defiant at being eradicated that many of us question whether it can ever be fixed no matter who the magician-du-jour is. And it is a function of adding so many new players every year as to defy the very stability needed to eradicte the very cancer that still plagues this franchise. Teams that are rebuilding must go through growing pains of which we seem to be stuck because our player turnover rate is so high because we find complete dopes to begin with. Grwoing pians implies progress beyond massive player turnover with the goal of winning the big one again. WE never get out of the rut at leat not in the last 10 years or so. WE are stuck in perpetual rebuild mode.
To break this stucknes, what is required begins at the top. It is a good business model both for business and football for the owner to state what he/she wants for the franchise, hire the right people, and get out of the way. But what isn't a good model is for the owner to be a jellyfish with no backbone and not to convey much of anything except the bottom line. Kroneke has provided no direction or goal, he has not made clear his mission in winning as a culture, and he has never stated pubically that he wants to win like say the Wellington Family or Robert Kraft in New England. Kroneke is like a bad cough or rash. You know its there, you just wish it would go away. All he ahs transmitted is a losing culture that he was part of when teh Queen Idiot was running this glorified dog and pony show.
Although Kroneke hired Snisher, he apparently has done little to articulate what he wants from them and left to their devices, we get this scatter-brained almost schizophrenic result that everyone just cannot believe their eyes. Something like we all witness last evening. This conflagaration of j.v. high school football mixed with professional level players and coaches getting schooled on the fundamentals of the game and snickered at when even multiple blitzes failed to reach the opposing QB ALL NIGHT LONG!!! This took place in a stadium that doesn't even have the team colors on the seats and more of the oppositon fans show up than the team's in a shit hole of a building that sends a message embodied by a completely spineless, overpaid QB standing on the sidelines, collecting an overpriced paycheck, and spitting sunflower seeds on teh fake grass like he has a no cares in the world. You don't find that sort of shit even at Raiders or Browns games.
Coupled with failed drafts for 15 years and coaches who are selling one thing and producing another and you have what we witnessed last night and will probably see again for the next ten weeks. Get used to it Rams fans because unless this owner takes the reins of his own franchise and begins a new vision that provides the basis for a winning culture by establishing and fostering an environment for a team to have a heart, soul, and a goal of winning, little will change except for that once-in-a-100 years happenstance when we again will luck out and hoist another Superbowl trophy.
Afterall, even a blind squirrel stumbles onto a nut once and awhile!