St. Louis Rams

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For current information on this topic, see
2008 St. Louis Rams season
St. Louis Rams
Established 1936
Play in St. Louis, Missouri
Part of the NFL since 1937
St. Louis Rams helmet
St. Louis Rams logo
Helmet Logo
League/Conference affiliations

American Football League (1936)
National Football League (1937–present)

Current uniform
Team colors Millennium Blue and New Century Gold
Personnel
Owner Chip Rosenbloom, Lucia Rodriguez and Stan Kroenke
General Manager Jay Zygmunt
Head Coach Scott Linehan
Team history
Championships
League Championships (3)
Conference Championships (6)
  • NFL National: 1950, 1951
  • NFL Western: 1955
  • NFC: 1979, 1999, 2001
Division Championships (15)
  • NFL West: 1945, 1949
  • NFL Coastal: 1967, 1969
  • NFC West: 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1985, 1999, 2001, 2003
Home fields

In Cleveland

In Los Angeles

In St. Louis

The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The team has won two NFL Championships and one Super Bowl.

The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland, Ohio. The NFL considers the franchise as a second incarnation of the previous Cleveland Rams team that was a charter member of the second American Football League. Although the NFL granted membership to the same owner, the NFL considers it a separate entity since only four of the players (William "Bud" Cooper, Harry "The Horse" Mattos, Stan Pincura, and Mike Sebastian) and none of the team's management joined the new NFL team.[1]

The team then became known as the Los Angeles Rams after the club moved to Los Angeles, California in 1946. Following the 1979 season, the Rams moved south to the suburbs in nearby Orange County, playing their home games at Anaheim Stadium in Anaheim for fifteen seasons (1980-94), keeping the Los Angeles name. The club moved east to St. Louis prior to the 1995 season.[2]

Contents

[edit] Franchise history

For more details on this topic, see History of the St. Louis Rams.

[edit] Cleveland Rams (1936-1945)

The Cleveland Rams were founded by attorney Homer Marshman in 1936. Their name, the Rams, comes from the nickname of Fordham University. Rams was selected to honor the hard work of the players that came out of that university. They were part of the newly formed American Football League and finished the 1936 in second place with a 5-2-2 record, trailing only the 8-3 record of league champion Boston Shamrocks.

The following year the Rams joined the National Football League and were assigned the Western division to replace the St. Louis Gunners, who left the league after a three game stint in the 1934 season. From the beginning, they were a team marked by frequent moves playing in three stadiums over several losing seasons. The franchise suspended operations and sat out the 1943 season because of a shortage of players during World War II and resumed playing in 1944.[3] The team finally achieved success in 1945, which proved to be their last season in Ohio, achieving a 9-1 record and winning their first NFL Championship, a 15-14 home field victory over the Washington Redskins on December 16.[4]

[edit] Los Angeles Rams (1946-1994)

In 1946, Rams' owner Dan Reeves, fed up with poor attendance at Cleveland Stadium and competing against the Cleveland Browns (then members of the All-America Football Conference), moved the Rams to Los Angeles, becoming the first NFL team based on the West Coast (there had been a team called the Los Angeles Buccaneers in 1926, but they played their schedule on the road only). Reeves brought in new partners in the form of Fred Levy, Ed Pauley, Harold Pauley, and Hal Seley and signed a deal with the city to lease the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and the team played there from 1946 to 1979.

The beginning of the Rams' residence in Los Angeles coincided with the arrival of another professional football team into the City of Angels, the Los Angeles Dons of the newly-formed All-America Football Conference. The two teams shared the Coliseum from 1946 through 1949, then merged before the NFL absorbed the AAFC in 1950.[5]

Reeves died in 1971, and through a complicated arrangement with the Baltimore Colts that brought Bob Irsay in as Colts' owner, Carroll Rosenbloom, who had been the Colts' owner, took over the Rams.

Rosenbloom had long been bothered by the Coliseum Commission's apparent foot dragging on building luxury boxes at the Coliseum, which he saw as essential to future success. He broke off negotiations with the Commission and started to negotiate to play at Dodger Stadium, but Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley did not want a football team playing at Chavez Ravine. Rosenbloom was petitioned by Orange County Supervisor Ralph Clark, the founder of the Los Angeles Rams Booster Club, to move the team to Anaheim Stadium, the home of the California Angels. Clark convinced Angels owner Gene Autry to okay the remodeling of Anaheim Stadium to accommodate the Rams, expanding capacity to 68,000 and putting in seating appropriate to football. In 1980, the Rams moved to Anaheim from Los Angeles.

[edit] St. Louis Rams (1995-present)

Under the terms of the Rams' deal with Anaheim, they were to receive the rights to develop plots of land near the Stadium. When nothing came of these plans, and with attendance falling, Rams' owner Georgia Frontiere (Rosenbloom's widow, as he died before the move to Anaheim was completed) got permission to relocate the team. After an aborted move to Baltimore, the Rams moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 1995, initially playing at Busch Memorial Stadium until the TransWorld Dome (now the Edward Jones Dome) was completed. The NFL owners originally rejected the move -- until Frontiere agreed to share some of the permanent seat license revenue she was to receive from St. Louis. This same year the then-Los Angeles Raiders were threatening to relocate as well -- and did, back to Oakland.

The 1995 and 1996 seasons the Rams were under the direction of head coach Rich Brooks. Then in 1997 Dick Vermeil was hired as the head coach. He remained head coach until retiring after the Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV against the Tennessee Titans in early 2000. After that Mike Martz took over until his firing in 2005. Scott Linehan is the current head coach after replacing Martz in January of 2006. During this time some of the most important players have been Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce. They were part of an offense dubbed "one of the fastest ever" and "The Greatest Show on Turf". This offense has been under the direction of Kurt Warner (1999-2001) and Marc Bulger (2002-present).

Georgia Frontiere died January 18th, 2008.[6] Ownership of the team passed to her son Dale "Chip" Rosenbloom and daughter Lucia Rodriguez.[7] Chip Rosenbloom was named the new Rams majority owner.[8]


[edit] Seasons-by-season records

[edit] Logo and uniforms

The Rams became the first professional American football team to have a logo on their helmets. Ever since halfback Fred Gehrke painted ram horns on the team's helmets in 1948, the logo has been the club's trademark.

When the team debuted in 1937, the Rams' colors were red and black, featuring red helmets and black uniforms with red shoulders and sleeves. One year later they would switch their team colors to yellow and blue, with yellow helmets, white pants and blue uniforms. The Rams switched to yellow uniforms in the mid 1940s. When Gehrke introduced the horns, they were painted yellow gold on blue helmets. During the late 1950s, the team wore blue jerseys again.

In 1964, the colors were changed to blue and white. The helmets became blue with white rams' horns, the uniform design was changed to white pants and either blue or white jerseys. The Rams wore their white jerseys at home from the 1964 season up through the 1971 season; a tradition that continued under Tommy Prothro. Prothro switched the Rams to the blue jerseys at home in 1972, the final season of the blue and white combination.

The colors returned to yellow gold and blue in 1973. The new uniform design consisted of yellow gold pants and curling rams horns on the sleeves – yellow gold horns on the blue jerseys and blue horns on the white jerseys. The white jerseys had yellow gold sleeves. The Rams primarily wore blue at home with this combination, but would wear white on occasion at home, notably for games against the Dallas Cowboys, who usually do not wear their blue jerseys, and selected AFC teams.

The team's colors were changed from yellow gold and blue to New Century Gold (metallic gold) and Millennium (navy) blue in 2000 following the Super Bowl win. A new logo of a ram's head was added to the sleeves and gold stripes were added to the sides of the jerseys. The new gold pants no longer featured any stripes. Blue pants and White pants with a small gold stripe (ala Denver Broncos) were also an option with the Rams only electing to wear the white set in a pre-season game in San Diego in 2001. The helmet design essentially remains the same as it was in 1948, except for updates to the coloring, navy blue field with gold horns. Both home and away jerseys had a gold stripe that ran down each side, but that only lasted for the 2000 and 2001 seasons.

In 2003, the Rams wore blue pants with their white jerseys for a pair of early-season games, but after losses to the New York Giants and Seattle Seahawks, the Rams reverted to gold pants with their white jerseys. In 2005, The Rams wore the blue pants again at home against Arizona and on the road against Dallas. In 2007, the Rams wore all possible combinations of their uniforms. They wore the Blue Tops and Gold Pants at home against Carolina, San Francisco, Cleveland, Seattle, and on the road against Dallas. They wore the Blue Tops and Blue Pants at home against Arizona, Atlanta, and Pittsburgh on Marshall Faulk night. They wore the Blue Tops and White Pants on the road in Tampa Bay and at home against Green Bay. They wore White Tops and Gold Pants at New Orleans and San Francisco. They wore White Tops and White Pants at Seattle and Arizona. And they wore White Tops and Blue Pants at Baltimore and Cincinnati. Since moving to St. Louis in 1995, the Rams have always worn blue at home. Just like most other teams playing in a dome, the Rams do not need to wear white to gain an advantage with the heat despite its midwestern geographic location. The last time the Rams wore white at home was in 1994, back when the Rams played in Los Angeles.

[edit] Players of note

See also: List of St. Louis Rams players

[edit] Current roster

St. Louis Rams roster
view  talk  edit
Quarterbacks

Running Backs

Wide Receivers

Tight Ends

Offensive Linemen

Defensive Linemen

Linebackers

Defensive Backs

Special Teams

Reserve Lists
  • Currently vacant


Rookies in italics
Roster updated 2008-06-10
Depth ChartTransactions

More rosters

[edit] Pro Football Hall of Famers

These Rams, and St. Louis Cardinals Hall-of-Famers Dan Dierdorf and Larry Wilson, are honored in the Ring of Honor at the Edward Jones Dome.

Ollie Matson (33), Andy Robustelli (81), Dick "Night Train" Lane (also 81), coach Earl "Dutch" Clark, general manager Tex Schramm, GM and later NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, and coach Sid Gillman are also members of the Hall of Fame, but were elected on the basis of their performances with other teams or (in the case of Rozelle) NFL administration. Dick Vermeil has become the first and still only St. Louis Rams figure inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Cardinals inducted into it include Dierdorf, Smith, Wilson, Conrad Dobler, Jim Hart and coach Jim Hanifan.

Cleveland/Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams Hall of Famers
No. Player Class Position(s) Years Played
-- George Allen 2002 Coach 1966-1970
76 Bob Brown 2004 OT 1969-1970
29 Eric Dickerson 1999 RB 1983-1987
55 Tom Fears 1970 End 1948-1956
40 Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch 1968 RB, WR 1949-1957
75 Deacon Jones 1980 DE 1961-1971
65 Tom Mack 1999 G 1966-1978
74 Merlin Olsen 1982 DT 1962-1976
-- Dan Reeves 1967 Owner 1941-1971
78 Jackie Slater 2001 OT 1976-1995
25 Norm Van Brocklin 1971 QB, P 1949-1957
7 Bob Waterfield 1965 QB, DB, K, P 1945-1952
85 Jack Youngblood 2001 DE 1974-1984

[edit] Retired numbers

[edit] Coaches of note

[edit] Head coaches

[edit] Current staff

St. Louis Rams staff
v  d  e
Front Office
  • Majority Owner - Chip Rosenbloom
  • Minority Owners - Stan Kroenke and Lucia Rodriguez
  • President - John Shaw
  • President of Football Operations/General Manager - Jay Zygmunt
  • Executive Vice President of Player Personnel - Billy Devaney
  • Vice President of Player Personnel - Tony Softli

Head Coaches

Offensive Coaches

  Defensive Coaches
  • Defensive Coordinator - Jim Haslett
  • Defensive Line - Brian Baker
  • Secondary - Ron Milus
  • Assistant Secondary - Mike Cox
  • Defensive Quality Control - Todd Downing

Special Teams Coaches

  • Special Teams - Al Roberts

Strength and Conditioning

  • Strength and Conditioning - Dana LeDuc
  • Assistant Strength and Conditioning - Chuck Faucette


Coaching Staff
More NFL staffs


[edit] Radio and television

The Rams' flagship radio station is KLOU 103.3FM. Steve Savard is the play-by-play announcer. Until October 2005, Jack Snow had been the color analyst for nearly 20 years, dating back to the team's days in the Los Angeles area. Snow left the booth after suffering an illness and died in January 2006. Former Rams offensive line coach Jim Hanifan joined the KLOU as the color analyst the year after Jack Snow's departure. Preseason games not shown on a national broadcast network are seen on KTVI, Channel 2, and are also seen in L.A. on KCOP, "MyNetworkTV channel 13."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Braunwart, Bob. ALL THOSE A.F.L.'S: N.F.L. COMPETITORS, 1935-41. Professional Football Researchers Association. Retrieved on 2006-11-13. “In 1937 the N.F.L. admitted the Cleveland Rams. Four of the players (according to Treat) were the same.”
  2. ^ St. Louis Rams History: Chronology. Official Website of the St. Louis Rams. Retrieved 13 September 2006
  3. ^ St. Louis Rams History: Chronology. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.
  4. ^ NFL History, 1945. Official Site of the NFL. Retrieved 13 September 2006
  5. ^ James P. Quirk and Rodney D. Fort, Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports, p. 438, ISBN 0691015740
  6. ^ MSNBC.com Sports "Former Rams owner Frontiere dies." Retrieved on 20 January 2008.
  7. ^ [1] "Future ownership of Rams in doubt." Retrieved 20 January 2008.
  8. ^ Gordon, Jeff. "Core must carry Rams through season of change", St. Louis Dispatch, 2008-03-25. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Achievements
Preceded by
Green Bay Packers
1944
NFL Champions
Cleveland Rams

1945
Succeeded by
Chicago Bears
1946
Preceded by
Cleveland Browns
1950
NFL Champions
Los Angeles Rams

1951
Succeeded by
Detroit Lions
1952
Preceded by
Denver Broncos
1997 and 1998
Super Bowl Champions
St. Louis Rams

1999
Succeeded by
Baltimore Ravens
2000