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Take Heart St. Louis, the Rams Are Staying Put
Published: June 3, 2009
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Don’t worry Rams fans; you won’t be losing another team. I promise you won’t get burned again.
The news that Chip Rosenbloom and Lucia Rodriguez are selling their controlling interest in the franchise shouldn’t come as a big surprise.
They have to sell.
After the death of their mother, Georgia Frontiere, Rosenbloom and Rodriguez took control of her 60 percent interest in the club. Neither wanted to own a football team. Rosenbloom is a movie producer and Rodriguez is heavily involved in charity and non-profit work. Their hearts aren’t in football ownership.
Add to that a hefty inheritance tax looming on the horizon, and it’s obvious Rosenbloom and Rodriguez want out. Even so, they have the best interest of St. Louis and Rams fans at heart.
They’ve done a decent job trying to rebuild a club that is 5-27 over the past two seasons. President John Shaw was forced into retirement, and the siblings unloaded GM/Player Personnel chief Jay Zygmunt, a lawyer by trade, and replaced him with Billy Devaney, a football man.
Devaney jumped into action right away, dismissing interim head coach Jim Haslett, replacing him with Steve Spagnuolo.
Spagnuolo was a solid choice, based on his successful years in Philadelphia and as defensive coordinator of the Giants. On the field, the Rams appear to be in good hands. It shouldn’t take a coach like Spagnuolo long to bring a winner back to the Gateway City.
Off the field, things haven’t been as smooth.
Rosenbloom has tried for over a year to find local ownership for the club with no such luck. Now the family has hired Goldman Sachs, an investment banking firm, to find a buyer for the team. And it doesn’t matter if he’s a St. Louisan or not.
This sent Rams fans into a tizzy. Thoughts of 1988, Bill Bidwell, and the football Cardinals leaving town came dancing in their heads. The paranoia has spread to the Internet with blog and forum posts screeching like the Rams are already gone.
Relax everyone. Take a deep breath. Just relax.
Relax…don’t do it. When you want to go to it.
Sorry. I just had a bad ’80s flashback. I’m all better now.
Listen up. The Rams will stay in St. Louis. They won’t be leaving for a long, long time. Here are some logical reasons why.
First, the economy sucks. There isn’t a better way to state it. The economic situation is in the mud right now and the only cities financially able to handle an NFL franchise at this moment are Los Angeles and Toronto.
Toronto wants the Buffalo Bills, forget them. Los Angeles has already lost three franchises in the past (Chargers, Rams, and Raiders) and there is uncertainty in NFL inner circles if L.A. will even support a team anymore.
Second, the lease at the Edward Jones Dome runs until 2014, so the Rams are still locked into St. Louis for another five years. That’s plenty of time to work out a way to revamp the Ed to make it a top-tier NFL stadium. In the long run, it will be cheaper and easier to upgrade than try to get taxpayers to front a new one.
Third, Rosenbloom opening up the bidding will get the locals off their hands and into the fray to keep the team from leaving. This has already happened. Dave Checketts, owner of the St. Louis Blues, has stated publicly he’s put together a group ready to buy the franchise. Talks with Rosenbloom are ongoing.
The Rams have been valued by Forbes magazine at $929 million, but the new ownership group will have to fork over only the 60percent share owned by Rosenbloom and Rodriguez. Stan Kroenke, owner of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche, owns the other 40 percent.
That’s still a ton of money, but not overwhelming for a solidly backed group like Checketts supposedly has.
Fourth, and maybe most important, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to keep the team in St. Louis. It’s no secret one of Goodell’s goals is to have a franchise in Los Angeles, but he doesn’t want it to be the Rams.
St. Louis is one of the major cities in the Midwest with the 20th largest media market in the United States. Only Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Cleveland are larger markets in the Midwest.
The St. Louis fans are some of the most rabid and loyal in sports. They support their teams through thick and thin. Goodell doesn’t want to betray that loyalty and I don’t think Rosenbloom wants to either.
Be patient Rams fans. When the dust from this finally settles, your team will be right where it belongs: still in St. Louis.
Seven Pittsburgh Steelers To Keep An Eye On in 2009
Published: May 27, 2009
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Building a championship football team takes a mix of veterans and youth, superstars and role players. It’s a delicate recipe that requires just the right balance.
This blending of ingredients takes place during free agency and ends with the draft. In the last four years, no team has done a better job of mixing and matching talent than the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The superstars are well known.
Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward, James Harrison, and Troy Polamalu have gotten all the glory during Pittsburgh’s run to Super Bowl titles in two of the last four seasons. Nothing wrong with that. They are stars in the league and deserve all the accolades they’ve received.
But without the role players, the unsung performers who give it their all, championship rings and the Lombardi Trophy wouldn’t belong to the Steel City right now.
Guys like Brett Keisel, Santonio Holmes, LaMarr Woodley, Heath Miller, and Casey Hampton have emerged in recent seasons and are important cogs in the Steeler machine.
As a new season fast approaches, who will be Pittsburgh’s breakout players and newcomers to look out for in 2009?
Here are seven to keep an eye on.
Coaching The Main Reason For Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl Victories
Published: May 12, 2009
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The Pittsburgh Steelers have won two Super Bowls in the past four seasons. Not quite as dominant as the glory days of Chuck Noll, but awfully close.
When you think of the reasons behind Pittsburgh’s most recent successes, names like Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward, James Harrison and Jerome Bettis jump out at you and rightly so.
All of the above are worthy of the glory, but the real reason for the Steelers’ success is not found in the huddle. It is rarely mentioned in newspapers, blogs or sports talk radio.
The main factor in Pittsburgh’s ascent back to greatness is an iron-willed, determined coaching staff full of savvy veterans of the NFL wars.
Four names stand out: head coach Mike Tomlin, defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, and quarterback coach Ken Anderson.
Start with the steam that drives the Steeler engine, Dick LeBeau.
Pittsburgh is a franchise steeped in tradition, especially the defensive kind. From the Steel Curtain to the Greg Lloyd and Kevin Greene sack attack, the Steelers whole identity as a franchise revolves around aggressive, defensive football.
LeBeau, in his second stint as coordinator, has kept the tradition going strong.
The originator of the “zone blitz” scheme, LeBeau’s defense was the best in the league in 2008, and James Harrison was voted NFL Defensive Player of the Year as well.
LeBeau’s charges surrendered a paltry 13.9 points per game, and even more impressive, gave up only 19 total touchdowns all season.
LeBeau has been an NFL coach for 35 years, starting with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973. He was head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals from 2000-02. His first stint with the Steelers lasted from 1992-96. He was also a pro-bowl cornerback who finished his career with 62 interceptions, seventh most in NFL history.
The defense is the heart and soul of this team and LeBeau is the driving force. His players love him and would run through a wall of fire if he told them to.
On the offensive side of the ball, Bruce Arians and Ken Anderson have been instrumental in the development of Roethlisberger and the gradual change to a more pass oriented offense.
Arians has been with the Steelers since 2004 and became offensive coordinator in 2007 with the departure of Ken Whisenhut to Arizona. The 31-year coaching vet has been coordinator of the Browns (2001-03) and head coach at Temple (1982-88). He was also quarterbacks coach for the Indianapolis Colts from 1998-2000, and was a key figure in the growth of another stud QB, Peyton Manning.
Anderson, who played for the Bengals from 1971-86, was one of the best quarterbacks of the seventies and should be in the Hall of Fame. His 32,838 passing yards and 197 touchdowns are still Cincinnati team records.
He came to Pittsburgh from Jacksonville in 2007 and in his first year as QB coach, helped produce record-breaking results for Big Ben.
In his first year with the Steelers, Anderson helped Roethlisberger have one of his most productive seasons, finishing with a team record 32 TD passes and a QB rating of 104.1. Roethlisberger was elected to the first Pro Bowl of his career in 2007.
Last but certainly not least is Tomlin.
Question marks spread throughout Steeler Nation when an unknown Tomlin was hired as head coach in 2007.
The questions were quickly answered.
Tomlin is a players coach, cut from the same cloth as Noll and Bill Cowher. His aggressive style of coaching and rapport with the players was learned at the feet of Tony Dungy, Monte Kiffin and John Gruden in Tampa Bay. He’s a combination of Cowher’s intensity and Dungy’s respect for the players.
The results speak for themselves: a 25-11 record, two AFC North titles and Super Bowl XLIII champions. He surrounded himself with a great coaching staff, but Tomlin is the mortar that holds the whole foundation together.
Give credit to the Rooney’s for adhering to a philosophy that Noll brought to a struggling franchise in 1969 and turned them into the team of the seventies. Noll’s fingerprints have been on the Steelers since and Cowher and Tomlin have kept this hard-nosed style of football going strong.
Yes, the Pittsburgh Steelers have a great defense and yes, they have Big Ben. But if you want to know the real reason for the team’s success, look no further than the amazing coaching staff the Rooney’s have put together.
