St. Louis Rams

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]

Franchise history

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

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 football players that came out of that university. They were part of the newly formed American Football League and finished the 1936 regular season 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 had 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]

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 were a road-only team that simply featured players from California). 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.

St. Louis Rams (1995–present)

Carroll Rosenbloom, an expert swimmer, died in a freak drowning accident off the coast of Florida in 1979. Georgia Rosenbloom inherited the team and Carroll's son, Steve Rosenbloom was to become the team's "Football Manager". Two weeks after Carroll's death, Georgia fired her stepson. Two months after Carroll's death, Georgia married Dominic Frontiere. 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 Trans World 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. Vermeil's Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz was hired to replace Vermeil and managed to take the Rams to the Super Bowl, losing to the New England Patriots. Ever since their loss in the Super Bowl to the Patriots, the Rams have been on a downward trend. However, in the first round in the 2004 draft, the Rams chose Oregon State running back Steven Jackson as the 24th pick of the draft. Jackson has been one of the Rams most successful running backs since the Rams arrival in St. Louis. After the Rams fired Mike Martz, Scott Linehan took control of an 8-8 team in 2006. In 2007, Linehan led the Rams to their worst record yet, 3-13. Linehan was then fired September 29, 2008, after the team started the season 0-4. Jim Haslett, Defensive Coordinator under Linehan, currently serves as Interim Head Coach.

Georgia Frontiere died January 18, 2008 after a 28 year ownership commencing in 1979.^[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]

Season-by-season records

Main article: St. Louis Rams seasons

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 due to the popular notion that the Cowboys' blue jerseys are jinxed) 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. However, the Rams did wear their white jerseys with their blue pants in St. Louis against the Dallas Cowboys on October 19, 2008, winning 34-14.^[9]

Players of note

See also: List of St. Louis Rams players

Current roster

Pro Football Hall of Famers

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

Joe Namath (12), 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.

Retired numbers

• 7 Bob Waterfield
• 28 Marshall Faulk
• 29 Eric Dickerson
• 74 Merlin Olsen
• 78 Jackie Slater
• 85 Jack Youngblood

Coaches of note

Head coaches

Main article: List of St. Louis Rams head coaches

Current staff

Radio and television

The Rams were the first NFL team to televise both their home and away games during the 1950 NFL season. The 1951 NFL Championship Game was the first Championship Game televised coast-to-coast.

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 and former St. Louis Cardinals head 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."

References

See also

• The Greatest Show on Turf

External links

• St. Louis Rams official web site
• Los Angeles Rams
• Pro Football Reference Rams index
• Sports E-Cyclopedia.com
• RamsFootball.com
• Stlouisramfan

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