Rams ownership ranked 22nd among NFL owners

Michael Silver has a lengthy article on yahoo.com today ranking the NFL owners, or at least in this case, the 17th-best owner through the worst. Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez came in 22nd in Silver's estimation.

You'll see that most of the franchises in the bottom half of Silver's ratings are either historically-bad teams or teams with stadium issues that may be looking to pull up stakes.

Silver on Rams ownership:
"I love the way Rosenbloom, who took over the franchise after mother Georgia Frontiere’s death in January, reacted after I wrote a story stating that he and his sister Rodriguez were shopping the franchise: He issued a denial which insisted, “I can assure you I have every intention of keeping the Rams in St. Louis.” Right, and I can assure you I have every intention of losing five pounds before I hit the road for my training camp tour … oops. Last week Rosenbloom stuck to his story, explaining that he had hired a Baltimore firm specializing in sports investments merely to field inquiries from interested buyers, a role he portrayed as “simply returning these people’s phone calls.” Translation: The Rams are in play, and there’s a chance that whomever buys the franchise will look to return it to Southern California. The one potential savior, minority owner Stan Kroenke (who has a 40-percent stake), would have to sell off his interest in the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and NHL’s Colorado Avalanche to satisfy the NFL’s rules against cross-ownership of pro teams in other NFL cities. Kroenke is so highly regarded that some of his NFL peers might push for the rule to be waived, but that would be a long shot; Broncos owner Bowlen, for one, would figure to be highly scrutinizing of such an arrangement. In the meantime, the Rams have a capable CEO in Shaw, who likely won’t be around to solve the stadium issues that, barring substantial improvements to the Edward Jones Dome or a new facility in St. Louis, will result in the team being able to get out of its lease in 2015."

Interesting points from the article:
* In 1995, Jacksonville unbelievably got an expansion team over St. Louis, largely on the strength of the reputation/schmoozing abilities of its owner-to-be, Wayne Weaver. A mere 12 years later, who's considered the worst owner in the NFL? What city has one of the worst stadiums, which it has to close off huge portions of to achieve "sellouts"?

* Bidwill got his billion-dollar dome, and just (oops) TWO YEARS LATER, the Big Dead already can't sell out the place? And seriously, they don't fly in draft prospects? Warms my heart to see him entrenched near the bottom, though. He belongs there.

* How bad do owners 23-32 have to be, when St. Louis' ownership ranks ahead of them for basically having done nothing so far? They just took over, they haven't made any significant decisions, and they've never run a football team before! And they're ranked ahead of ten other owners!

Anyway, I have little intention of reading the second half of Silver's ratings when they come out, since I'm sure super-annoyances Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft will be 1-2. Also, I have no clue how Daniel Snyder can blow all the money he does on spectacular free agent failures (Adam Archuleta, anyone?), change head coaches on a whim, meddle in everything, and charge fans admission to get into training camp, and be in the top half of NFL owners.

That counterfeits Silver's rankings for me right there.