Bernie Miklasz: The Rams don't like the local media. Waaaaaa!

It's not that uncommon to go to a owner's box or a GM's box for an interview. During the game might be strange, before or after the game wouldn't be that unheard of, especially for national media.

NFL GMs are rarely in town during the middle of the week and to get an out-of-town GM for an in-person interview would usually require the writer coming to town on a Monday or Tuesday, which are usually the GM's busiest days of the week.

 

When I was covering the NFL I did it twice. Both times I was told, "Have the PR guy bring you down here to come get me." Both times I was asked if I wanted to do the interview there or in the press box. Gee, tough decision.

Both times I was back in the press box long before kickoff.

 

Just. Awful. Even St. Louis is too much for Bernie.

 

Seems like it would have been simple to verify. Just ask Simers, face to face, if he was there or not. Or, in the days following the Rams-Vikings game, call him up. Instead, Simers called Miklasz to inform him he wasn't in the suite.

 

Correction: In his column the next day, Bernie didn't indicate how Simers contacted him.

 

The thought of St. Louis media being hard on the Cardinals is pretty fucking funny.

No city in America has a larger collection of self-delusional idiots than St. Louis.

 

You <i>must</i> visit New York some day.

 

Why is this a big deal? I'm guessing Simers knows Devaney from his days as a Chargers beat writer (I think Devaney was there at the time, during the Bobby Ross era).

T.J. covered the Rams when they were in Anaheim, too, so if he's schmoozing with John Shaw does that mean the team is giving him special treatment? No. It means Shaw knows him and is willing to talk to him.

And if St. Louisans had seen the column that came out of Simers' visit -- the tone of which essentially was, 'Please don't let them come back to LA' -- maybe they'd be redfaced for being so damn sensitive.

 

Harsh. It's a 24/7 baseball town which wears rose-colored glasses, constantly.
It is what it is. Doesn't make them evil. As towns go, the general population
is more pleasant than in the majority of major cities. Population carries a huge
chip on shoulder because Chicago passed them like a fast train a century ago,
but that's understandable. Onward.

 

What is going to be interesting about which team winds up in LA is there is no way Goodell is going to let the league miss out on a potential $1 billion franchise fee. If that seems high, remember Houston paid $800 million.

The league desperately does not want to add a 33rd team. The teams most likely to move to LA would be Jacksonville, St. Louis, San Diego and possibly Minnesota if they don't get a new stadium. But Goodell isn't going to let anyone move there unless a truckload of money is paid to the league for the right to do so.

 

I'd like to know who would pony up $1 billion for a franchise fee in this economy, especially in L.A., which is blase about having a team to begin with.

 

They're fanatical about being from St. Louis. Men, women, old ones, young ones.

And they expect you to be excited about it, too, maybe more.