Proving the compliant lackey he always has been, NFL "Commissioner" Roger Goodell has released a 48-page report that claims the Rams have MET the league's relocation guidelines, along with the Raiders and the Chargers. Goodell claims the St. Louis stadium proposal has "too many uncertainties" and the city hasn't come up with a viable solution despite "ample time" to do so. In other words, there is nothing here to block the Rams from moving out.
I can't speak to the other two teams, but Goodell is buying and passing along the complete line of bullshit Kroenke started feeding last year and really poured on thick with his piece-of-shit lie-filled attack job on St. Louis last week.
First of all, there is no indication Kroenke even owns the Rams legally by NFL guidelines. Remember? You're not allowed to own a pro sports team in another market if you want to own an NFL team. Now, go look at the Colorado Avalanche website and tell me Kroenke has given up any control over that team. I won't even bother with the Nuggets. Kroenke hasn't been required to meet this rule in the least by the NFL.
The idea that Kroenke has worked with St. Louis AT ALL on a new stadium is completely preposterous, let alone his bald-faced lie last week that he's tried to work with the city since 2002. You can't find a single city official who's ever talked to the guy, something the mayor of the city, who's never met the guy, pointed out this week.
To Kroenke, "trying" to resolve a stadium situation is sitting on your ass for 20 years waiting for a sweetheart lease to run out and then complaining that you actually have to pay a pittance to use the stadium after that. The only "plan" Kroenke offered to keep the team here was the ludicrous idea that the city should pay $700 million and tear down half the existing stadium and rebuild it. More free stadium for him. Meanwhile, where the hell was the team supposed to play? How does this constitute any work with the city to resolve the stadium? Why didn't he just ask somebody on the CVC to drop trou and lay a fucking golden egg on the table? That's as realistic as anything Kroenke ever offered as a solution to the stadium plan.
Goodell, who's been rigging this thing all along to move the Rams out, since the league never wanted them or any other team here in the first place, puts his official stamp of incompetence on this bullshit by announcing the Rams stadium plan is flawed, claiming it asks for the league to contribute $300 million instead of its max policy of $200 million. First of all, that $300 million claim has been disputed. Second of all, it's a loan, not a grant. Third of all, the NFL was more than happy to help keep the Vikings in Minnesota courtesy of a scheme that planned on the state providing funding largely based on some bar gambling game called "pull tabs". Which I have never played, but I assume Minnesotans must play, what, BILLIONS of times a year to make such a financing plan feasible? The NFL loved that plan. (Falling well short of their "pull tab" goal, Minnesota has raised cigarette taxes to fund the Vikings' new stadium instead.) But no, we're going to ding St. Louis for what's possibly the NFL's clerical mistake. Not that they'll mention that possibility to the owners voting next week.
This stopped being about the truth or a league obeying its rules long ago. Goodell is in the tank for Kroenke and is doing his damnedest to make his brutal, obnoxious spin the truth, knowing the owners are likely to buy the spin because they want to get the whole L.A. mess over with after 20 years and aren't likely to do a lot of their own legwork.
Fuck you, Goodell, and it goes without saying again, Fuck you, Kroenke.
The only thing that can possibly save football in St. Louis now, assuming the league even fucking follows the result of its own vote, would be if the owners lobbying for the Carson effort have 9 votes to block Kroenke. And that won't be much of a hurdle for a room full of greedy, lying douchebags who don't obey their own rules. They'll either change relocation to be a 2/3rd vote, or just buy the Charger and Raiders owners off. That's probably already in motion.
Fuck you all.
-$-
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