Is L.A. off the table in Rams stadium talks?

I'm going to start this off by saying, I never really kept up with the St. Louis Rams stadium talks. Not living in St. Louis, but being a big fan of the Rams, I followed the talks from a distance, but without getting too far into the ugly details.

This is what I know: the Rams won their arbitration, and the Edward Jones Dome has to be a top-tier stadium. If some acceptable version of the team's $700 million plan for the Dome can't be agreed upon, the Rams are free to leave in 2015. If you want more details than that, you will have to ask the boss, Ryan.

What has been hard to ignore, is the talk of the St. Louis Rams relocating back to Los Angeles. During the season, there was a lot of talk about the Rams returning to Southern California. Even former wide receiver Steve Smith talked about the Rams leaving and the players discussing it.

Well it doesn't look like the Rams will be returning to their roots anytime soon. According to Jason Cole, writer for Yahoo Sports, sources are telling him that the Farmers Field stadium project is a "no-go" as far as the NFL is concerned.

"The numbers just don't work, no matter how you look at the deal," a league source said in February. "It's either too hard for AEG to make money [and pay the debt on the stadium] or too hard for the team. I just can't see a way for it to work."

This news is kind of shocking, based on all the hype surrounding this project. Cole makes it clear what the issue us; it's about money.

Money is always the answer. If the NFL can't make good money off of the deal, then what's the point of doing it? What this does mean is that the Rams might not have as much leverage in local stadium talks as they once hoped.

However, this news doesn't mean that the NFL is done trying to make things work in L.A. The same article has this to say about the situation.

In the meantime, the NFL has again started to focus on other locations around Los Angeles. Many of those sites have already been discussed in the past, such as Hollywood Park in Inglewood and Ed Roski's site in City of Industry. Ultimately, the NFL source said the only answer may be for a particularly wealthy owner to pick a site and make it work.

The Rams owner Stan Kroenke has the money to pursue that idea, so St. Louis fans might not be off the hook of worrying yet. But right now, things are looking good.