St. Louis Rams

The Saint Louis Rams was the third relocation of the franchise. They returned professional football to Missouri’s capital after Cardinals left for Arizona in 1987. The Rams arrived in St. Louis in 1995.

Grounds of relocation

The team played most of the time in California and had a great fan base. But the start of the 1990s changed the situation. The team decreased the performance without playoff berths. Their present owner, Georgia Frontiere, became the bullying victim because the audience blamed her poor decisions. The stadium was worn down, but the authorities didn’t plan to build the new venue. It pushed Georgia to find a place for relocation. She planned to relocate to Baltimore, but the city received the team from the Rams’ alma mater, Cleveland, and didn’t need it anymore. So Mrs. Frontiere chose St. Louis who missed the football since 1987.

The first attempt led to the rejection of the proposal. Most owners, accompanied by the commissioner, considered this step as untolerated, relating to the local fans. The main arguments were the loss of loyalty and the last years of failure didn’t mean the necessity to leave the city. However, the Rams’ owner initiated the lawsuit defending her project. She reminded that the negotiations with the Orange County and Los Angeles authorities about the new venue failed. Her desire for peace was more favorable, so the owners changed their minds.

The performance in St. Louis

The team debuted at the new location on September 10, 1995, with a victory over Saints 17-13. They had to play some matches at the temporary Busch Memorial Stadium until the opening of the TransDome Arena on November 12. The team couldn’t find their game under the coaching of Brooks and Vermel. The franchise’s combined statistic was 45-99 at the end of the 1999 season.
The only pleasure was the unexpected triumph in 1999 when the Rams demonstrated an excellent 13-3 seasonal record and qualified for the playoffs for the first time after relocation. This race ended with the Super Bowl title. They defeated Tennessee Titans in the decisive game.

The victory started the short series of playoff appearances. The Rams repeated the peak of their success in 2001 but they lost the 2001 Super Bowl XXXVI to the Patriots. The wave of playoffs ended in 2004.

Its key was the Greatest show on turf. That’s the name of the powerful offense active between 1999 and 2001. That formation was the clue of Mike Martz, a coach who oriented on the attack. It included the elements of Air Coryell’s defense.

2005 opened the box of playoff drought. The scrapped team between LA and Missouri needed help with coordination. The team’s president in Los Angeles clashed with head coach Martz. In these conditions, the team couldn’t function with the previous success despite picking talented stars. The moral state affected the results. The record was good, but it disallowed participation of the St. Louis Rams even in Wild Card.

Returning to Los Angeles
The stadium issues enriched the aforementioned problems. St. Louis Rams should have kept the stadium in the top 25 percent of stadiums throughout the league. Of course, the city completed some renovations, including scoreboard upgrades. But the team didn’t modify the Edward Jones Dome Stadium in 2005 as Georgia Frontiere waived the proposal. In 2013, the arbitrator ordered that the part of the agreement between St. Louis and the Rams concerning the $700 million renovation project was unreasonable. The city had to compensate Rams the expenses for the attorneys.

Of course, St. Louis wanted to keep the team in the metropolitan area, so they proposed to lease the multipurpose venue National Car Rental Field. The venue was estimated at $1.1 bn. The contribution of the Rams should be $250 million. But the team’s heart was in Los Angeles, so the team owner Kroenke bought 24 hectares of land near Inglewood and started the construction of the new NFL stadium for 800000 seats and the corresponding infrastructure. The team returned home in 2016 after several meetings held in Houston and Los Angeles.