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Have I told you how much I love you? No, seriously. I need to offer a heartfelt thanks to our growing community of St. Louis Rams fans. This will be the sixth season for myself and Turf Show Times. I'd tell you what the exact date was, but I'm terrible with dates...just ask my wife. Needless to say, it's been one helluva journey.
I've been here through some of the worst football I can remember. There were days during the span from 2007 to 2009 where, quite frankly, I couldn't finish the games. Disheartening. But through it all, we had a great community here, even back in the days when we were lucky to pull 2,500 readers a month. Last month we topped a million page views,We're not ESPN, we're not a daily newspaper (though St. Louis is blessed with a damn good one of those), what makes this site special is the fan community, a true success story of crowd sourcing and how the media landscape around sports in changing for the better.
I've been fortunate to be a part of this and SBNation, which has allowed me the opportunities to cover events like the scouting Combine and make deeper connections with players, agents, fellow media members and lots of other great writers hacking their way through the new media landscape. Though they haven't joined the tide of other teams around the league in officially recognizing or credentialing outlets like SBNation and TST, the Rams have a been a supportive organization to this site in a number of other ways. But that doesn't matter as much as the community we've built here.
With the calm before the storm of what should be one of the most exciting Rams' seasons in recent memory, certainly in the history of Turf Show Times, I just wanted to take the chance to say thanks again.
Also, you may have noticed a distinct change in over the last eight months or so, as we publish a ton of content. News, reaction, analysis, and the occasional lighter fare. If you have ideas for content you'd like us to cover, just send me an email, with those ideas or whatever. You can also hit me up on Twitter @TurfShowTimes.
Because it's been a busy week and we kick out the jams (MC5 nod), let me catch you up on a handful of important posts from this week (in fact, would you find it helpful to have a weekly recap?)
- Reaction and analysis of the Mark Clayton news from yesterday.
- The Danario Alexander conversation provoked some heated debate. He's obviously done with Clayton back in the picture.
- My prediction for the final makeup of the Rams defense and the offense. One change to the offense, replace Mardy Gilyard with Mark Clayton.
- Community stat predictions are underway. Here's a complete list and schedule for our player stat predictions.
- A look at evolution of Steven Jackson and some discussion about what the future holds.
- Andrew Luck is going to be a good quarterback. Is he better than Sam Bradford?
- Brick Top's take on how the wide receiver race will shake out, pre-Clayton edition.
- What have you learned from the Rams' preseason?
- Breaking down the Rams' defense on a big goal line stand against the Chiefs last week, and why I think it heralds big things for the unit.
Be sure to follow the whole TST crew on Twitter too, and follow us on Facebook, where you can do more than just check out pictures of the girls you went to high school with so long ago.
Twitterati: 3k - VT Rams Fan - Ram_rod - Brick Top - T.Ram - Douglas - buckeye