The sports landscape around here has changed dramatically in the last two decades, and there are some things you should know.
First, we didn't ask you to come back. Oh, we may have whined occasionally during Super Bowl weeks, but we didn't hold giant rallies or send emotional letters or really miss you that much. We play fantasy football, we watch DirecTV, we drive to Las Vegas for a three-team parlay. We've had our fill of the NFL without actually having a team.
Live football? We've fallen in love all over again with the pro-style programs at USC and UCLA, just check attendance figures.
Sundays? We've done just fine watching the Dodgers on Sunday afternoons in the fall and the Lakers on Sunday nights in the winter.
Second, we're not paying for you to come back. Every place else you've gone, the grateful locals have slipped you a few bucks to show up, but not here, not even close, which is probably why it took 21 years for you to return.
We didn't pry open civic pocketbooks or agree to any special taxes like some of those other smaller towns. We're sophisticated enough to understand that you're not a hospital or firehouse, that billionaires shouldn't need handouts to bankroll their pigskin parties.
So understand first that you're here because you want to be here and because you think you can make money here, not because anybody was dying to see you again. Consider yourself lucky to be back on our turf.
Dear lord. That's the LA Times' Bill Plaschke rolling out the worst welcome mat I've ever seen.
Less than 12 hours of a team being award to LA, Plaschke wants to make sure everyone understands LA doesn't really want NFL football that bad. Consider yourself lucky, Rams, to have left somewhere that isn't "sophisticated enough."
On Day 1 of the newborn Los Angeles Rams, Plaschke feels entitled enough to lay down three rules (yes, he's setting the rules now) for the Rams:
You must win. You must entertain. You must do both with the sort of decency and integrity that makes us feel comfortable enduring long lines of traffic, long lines at bathrooms, and mosh pits in parking lots for a chance to watch you play.
This is the the most uncomfortable first day of any honeymooon of any marriage ever.