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Regarding St. Louis, this issue goes back a ways. The Chicago Cardinals were amongst the earliest teams when the NFL formed from day one of the leagues history. They were always going to play second fiddle to George Halas and the Chicago Bears-always. In the 94 year history of the NFL, the Chicago/St. Louis/ Arizona Cardinals have more losses than any other club, IIRC it is 715. The only NFL Championship the Cardinals have came in 1947. And drew sparse crowds fpr years afterwards. Fourteen years later they moved to St. Louis and for several years played to some decent crowds at Busch stadium. And had a few winning seasons with first Charlie Johnson and later Jim Hart as their quarterback. Fast forward to 1972. After another run of losing seasons the Cardinals signed Don Coryell who was head coach at San Diego State University. Coryell at that time IMO was one of the best college coaches going and Coryell favored the passing game, which you don't see a lot of college coaches do, at least at that time anyway.
The Bidwill brothers were never known as giving credit where credits due to one important thought-money. When they drafted Joe Namath #1 in the 1965 NFL draft the story goes how Namath wanted this and wanted that. The Bidwell's laughed and said "no way will an AFL club give you that.' The money figure was $200K Well, the New York Jets went right past the Bidwell's and signed Namath for $427,000 plus other considerations. The Bidwell brothers got criticism from their fan base for some time for being--well, cheap!
. Finally, Don Coryell came along and turned this franchise around. They not only competed well in the NFC East Division but won the eastern division crown in 1974.. The division was the best in the league at that time because Dallas was in SB-V and SB-VI. And the Washington Redskins went to SB-VIII. And the Cardinals stayed right with them, at least in the regular seasons. Come 1978 the wheels fell off with Coryell's relationship with the owners. The story I heard from one of my friends who lived in the St. Louis area was Coryell wanted to get a sizable raise as he was in his 5th year with the club and ownership balked. And Coryell resigned. Several head coaches came and went; such as Jim Hanifan, Gene Stallings, and of all people Bud Wilkinson! The fans had been unhappy with ownership for over a decade. Coryell was able to keep the people coming but when Coryell left the franchise never recovered. And the crowds got smaller and smaller. And the Bidwell's decided to move.
After the 1987 season they left and moved to Arizona. They were first called the Phoenix Cardinals, then a few years later they were renamed the Arizona Cardinals. But it did not change the fact that the club was still bad. They would have to wait until 1998 when they actually would have a winning season and to play in a playoff game.
Last edited by DOUBLE H; 01-08-2016 at 02:50 PM..
Reason: heh, made a moderate one word change.
If only one team can move for the 2016 season, it makes sense that it would be the Rams. The L.A. Coliseum will only host one NFL team on a temporary basis. No other site in or around Los Angeles wants to host an NFL team temporarily. That and Stan Kroenke is the only one of the three owners who can build his own stadium (in Inglewood) without help from other owners or outside investors. The NFL also won't have to realign the NFC West and AFC West.
Frontiere sold the franchise to Stan Kroenke who IMO has always wanted to bring the franchise back to Los Angeles.
And chances are pretty good that will happen. In fact, real good.
Interestingly enough, Kroenke had right of first refusal to buy the franchise and has ever since the Rams moved to St. Louis. So it is very possible that the move to St. Louis was a long con by Kroenke and he had dreams of returning to Los Angeles since before the Rams ever even left Los Angeles.
Interestingly enough, Kroenke had right of first refusal to buy the franchise and has ever since the Rams moved to St. Louis. So it is very possible that the move to St. Louis was a long con by Kroenke and he had dreams of returning to Los Angeles since before the Rams ever even left Los Angeles.
Interestingly enough, Kroenke had right of first refusal to buy the franchise and has ever since the Rams moved to St. Louis. So it is very possible that the move to St. Louis was a long con by Kroenke and he had dreams of returning to Los Angeles since before the Rams ever even left Los Angeles.
I think he was involved in creating the "top tier" language in the deal with St. Louis so I wouldn't doubt this was a long plan of Kroenke to move the Rams back to LA.
Why can't San Diego and St Louis keep NFL teams happy? San Diego is a huge city with LA nearby and previously without an NFL team. This all seems very odd.
San Diego's situation is not that dissimilar to St. Louis.When the American Football League was formed in 1959, it was determined by Lamar Hunt that two teams had to be formed in the 2 biggest cities, New York and Los Angeles. The Hilton's of the Hilton Hotel empire started up the franchise. The club was named the Chargers and the reason for that was as the Hilton Hotel franchise grew and grew Barron Hilton decided the best way to keep his customers happy (and they were well heeled customers) was to create a credit card for their people, which came to be the card called Carte Blanche. Which for one of 2 reasons that they were called the Chargers.
Actually for the first few years of their history they were the class of the American Football League. They appeared in 4 out of 5 of the AFL Championship games, missing out of the title game in 1962. They were in Los Angeles for just the first year, 1960. But as the season wore on, the fact that they never drew much more than 20,000 a game and that the L.A. Coliseum held about 100,000, they obviously felt there was a problem here. As the attendance was so poor, they moved to San Diego the next year. The Chargers for the most part were on sound financial footing. They played their first 6 seasons in Balboa Stadium and by 1967 they moved to Jack Murphy Stadium.
Their championship run ran out in 1965 but still had competetive clubs until the early 1970's. In 1966 Hilton sold the club to Gene Klein and a small group of other investors.By 1976 the Chargers were digging themselves out of the cellar and started competing again, led by qb Dan Fouts. And Don Coryell (remember him?) became head coach. But like St. Louis, ownership was battling with players over salaries. IIRC it was 1977 Dan Fouts staged a long walkout over salary. After several weeks the Fouts situation finally got resolved but that was a sign of things to come. John Jefferson held out. Fred Dean held out. Jefferson was immediately traded to Green bay, Fred Dean to San Francisco.
And by the early 1980's the Chargers slipped down the standings. Again, money was the problem. And Gene Klein sold out his interest, and the new owner became Alex Spanos. They did go to the Super Bowl in 1994 and for the most part fielded competitive teams afterwards, but have never been a serious contender for a Super Bowl appearance except for the year Marty Schottenheimer took them to a 14-2 season, then lost in the divisional playoffs. A.J. Smith was the g.m. and always battled with Marty over things. Spanos decided one of the guys had to go. And Marty was sent packing. And the fans were real divided on this issue for years.
Jack Murphy (now Qualcomm) Stadium turned 30 years old when San Diego hosted SB-XXXII. And the NFL told the city to get with the program by building a nicer stadium. And I believe everyone by now knows how this situation has turned out. I wouldn't want to be in Mark Fabiani's shoes, he is the spokesman for the club. And pretty much was called every name in the book by Chargers fans from the San Diego Union (newspaper), to talk radio to tv interviews. A sad ending to one of the few franchises that held the American Football League together in its earlier years.
Actually for the first few years of their history they were the class of the American Football League. They appeared in 4 out of 5 of the AFL Championship games, missing out of the title game in 1962. They were in Los Angeles for just the first year, 1960. But as the season wore on, the fact that they never drew much more than 20,000 a game and that the L.A. Coliseum held about 100,000, they obviously felt there was a problem here. As the attendance was so poor, they moved to San Diego the next year. The Chargers for the most part were on sound financial footing. They played their first 6 seasons in Balboa Stadium and by 1967 they moved to Jack Murphy Stadium.
Yeah what I believe was missed in all this was the fact that the Chargers were originally supposed to be LA's 2nd NFL team. A move to San Diego was never meant to be permanent but due to the fact that the Chargers ended up getting more support in SD than in LA, it ended up being permanent.
Keep in mind that during the 1950s, the AFL was beginning to expand and compete with the NFL. The old NFL franchises, such as the NY Giants and SF 49ers all wanted their AFL counterparts to pay them money to stay in their markets. Part of the reason for the AFL-NFL merger was Al Davis's insistence on not having to pay an indemnity to their NFL counterparts, and that became a huge sticking point.
The Chargers, instead of having the risk of paying any kind of indemnity to the Rams, ended up moving to SD and claimed that market on their own. It just worked out a whole lot better.
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