The St. Louis Rams parted ways with two more long-time employees recently, according to Howard Blazer of 101 ESPN. A second round of firings comes just a few months after head coach Steve Spagnuolo got some bad press for unceremoniously dumping the team's equipment manager after, literally, a lifetime with the organization. John Oswald, VP of Operations, and Lory Fabian, Alumni Relations Coordinator, are the latest to get bounced as regime change works its way down through the ranks.
What could be behind the firings? Who knows. It could be anything. With the Rams being one of several teams where coaches are taking a pay cut, you don't wonder if layoffs and other cost-cutting measures won't happen elsewhere in the ranks. Businesses find redundancies. Could someone else do these jobs?
Oswald's case stands out the most. A 28-year veteran with the organization, he was responsible for team travel, day-to-day operations and coordinating training camp, according to the official site. Training camp, eh? Following the season's end, the Rams announced that they would be going out of town for training camp this year, and they were in the process of choosing between Missouri S&T in Rolla, MO, and Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL. At last report, Spagnuolo said they hoped to have a spot finalized within a month; that was at the end of March.
Did the training camp selection process catch the ire of Spagnuolo's notorious control issues?
I wonder if they got fired after team staff went out for a little tornado clean up this week?