Goodell on Rams to LA: "We want all of our franchises to stay in their current markets"

We want all of our franchises to stay in their current markets. That's a shared responsibility, that's something that we all have to work together on. The league has programs, including stadium funding programs, that we make available. And we will work and help with the communities, including St. Louis.

Now, that's NFL Commissioner PR-Powered Robot and Pudding Being Roger Goodell talking. You can bank on that about as much as me scoring a touchdown on Sunday. And for a grain of salt, remember that Albert Breer revealed this week that two of his sources suggested Goodell's been intimately involved with Kroenke's operations since December:

According to two involved sources, the Rams presented the project to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell before the December owners meetings in Dallas. As it worked out, that was as Goodell and the league were getting the new personal conduct policy ready for voting. And the plan had always been for the commissioner to turn more attention to L.A. once the policy was done. Suffice it to say, Kroenke gave him plenty to chew on.

Nevertheless, it's the commissioner on record, a commissioner who is likelier to help St. Louis keep the Rams than the current owner of the franchise. And, as we always note, it's part of a process that isn't close to over. Goodell knows as much. And the longer he can string this out, the longer he has to avoid the bluntness of either overseeing the Rams move to Los Angeles and the lack of football in St. Louis or a successful ploy of exploiting the second market in the US yet again leaving it without NFL action. Goodell knows to lean on time.

We have been working on the stadium issue with St. Louis as you know, for several years. We had a very formal process as part of the lease. That process, we went through that entire process, it did not result in a solution that works for St. Louis or for the team. So I don't think the stadium is a surprise to anybody in any market that is having these issues. There's quite a bit of discussion about it and the St. Louis representatives seem determined to build a stadium. That's a positive development, something that we look forward to working on with them.

Words.