Oh sure you remember Eric Crouch! The Nebraska football stud quarterback that went on to get a Heisman and then be drafted by your St. Louis Rams as a wide receiver? Mad Mike Martz’s plan never really worked and after getting a real injury to go along with his hurt pride, Crouch retired just weeks before the regular season.

What’s he up to now?

Crouch is now the owner of Crouch Recreation, a company that installs park and playground equipment ranging from water slides to scoreboards in Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa.

“I made the mistake in my career [of] saying, ‘Just get drafted the highest position and I would be open to playing anything,’” Crouch said. “And when I got to the NFL, that really wasn’t the situation. I was really a quarterback at heart.”

Yahoo Sports goes on to mention that Crouch still gets calls from teams wanting him to get back on the field. UFL not NFL:

To this day, Crouch is still getting calls. The UFL’s Omaha Nighthawks, an expansion franchise that already features ‘Husker legend Ahman Green on its roster and tried out former Ohio State star Maurice Clarett over the weekend, tried to lure Crouch out of retirement a couple months back. Crouch declined, pointing to the fact he’s had eight surgeries from football.

Good for him! It’s not often you hear about people being happy after leaving the Rams…well, other than Kyle Turley, Lovie Smith, Mike Martz, Marc Bulger, Tory Holt, and every one that went to a game last year.

via Yahoo! Sports

Sports Illustrated is counting down all 101 (apparently both 0 and 00 count) jersey numbers and naming the best players to wear that numeral of all time. In the list the Rams snagged five spots, with the majority coming from the LA days. The old skool Cardinals snuck one in there too later on down the list.

#28 Marshall Faulk

A key cog of the Rams’ “Greatest Show On Turf,” Faulk played his last game in 2005, ending a career in which he produced 19,154 combined yards from scrimmage. His 6,875 yards receiving are the most by any running back. #

#29 Eric Dickerson

An electrifying open-field runner, Dickerson ran for an NFL-record 2,105 yards in 1984 and gained 1,800 or more rushing yards in three of his first four seasons. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999. #

#74 Merlin Olsen

Before he became an actor and commercial pitchman, Olsen terrorized quarterbacks during his 15-year-career with the Rams and played in 14 straight Pro Bowls. #

#75 Deacon Jones (beating out Mean Joe Greene!)

A sack-master before it became cool, the 6-foot-5 defensive end teamed with tackle Merlin Olsen to give the Rams a “Fearsome” left side of the defensive line. #

#85 Jack Youngblood

Hall of Fame defensive end was a seven-time Pro Bowl pick in 14 seasons with the Los Angeles Rams (1971-84). Tough and durable, he played 201 straight games — and all of Super Bowl XIV despite a broken left leg. #

Dan Dierdorf, of the defunct St. Louis Cardinals, was deemed the best #72

The Hall of Fame right tackle anchored the Cardinals line over his 13 years with the club. He played in six Pro Bowls and following his retirement, he became an announcer with ABC and CBS Sports. #

No Kurt Warner didn’t get #13, that went to Dan Marino. Kurt did get “runner up” status though.

One other name you might recognize: Your mom won #69 because she was big enough to be a linebacker and was a total slut. Snap!

It’s been a long road for Stan Kroenke to get finally own the worst team in the NFL, but it looks like he might finally get the team. First there was the sudden claim of the team from Shahid Khan, then the NFL rules he had to dodge about cross-city ownership, and after all that, he had to be all like “Dude. I don’t have the money, but I promise I will have it soon. Be cool. What happened? You used to be cool.”  None of that matters now because the NFL finance committee has unanimously voted in favor of our man Stan.

The NFL’s finance committee has unanimously recommended approval of Stan Kroenke’s Rams purchase bid, the Post-Dispatch has confirmed through several league sources.

The finance committee will make its report and invite discussion Wednesday in Atlanta. At that time, Kroenke can comment or respond to questions as he chooses, and then the vote will take place.

The final vote will happened later today at the NFL owners meeting, but from here it looks to be smooth sailing for Stan Kroenke. Congrats Stan!

By the way, we have some issues with your new purchase: The team sucks, the arena they play in is crap and even with a #1 drafted quarterback, you still can’t put enough butts in the seats to get a home game shown on local TV.

Kroenke’s only issue? St. Louis’ lack of direct flights to L.A.

More:

Stan Kroenke Was All Like POW and Khan Was All Like WHAT?! Over Last Minute Rams Bid

Top 10 Things We Wish Stan Kroenke Would Step in and Buy

Mayor Slay Gets in to the Sports Reporting Business

Kroenke Tries Putting the Rams on Layaway

“You know what? Screw it! I’m going to buy them!”

“I think that’s against the rules.”

“Nah. I can get around them.”

“Ok, so you are serious? Because someone already said that they wanted to buy them.”

“Screw that guy, I’m going to buy them.”

“Eh…I guess we can change the rules…”

“Yeah, change them.”

“Good point. Ok, we’ll change them. That will be $600 Million dollars please.”

“I only have half. I’m good for it though.”

“What?!”

“I’ll give you the other half in a few years. “

That’s you Stan Kroenke. That’s our impression of you.

via St Louis Business Journal

Over the weekend, the Rams’ #1 draft pick, quaterback Sam Bradford finally signed his contract and it was for a lot of money. A believe the parlance is a “panty dropping amount”.

No. 1 overall draft pick Sam Bradford agreed to a six-year, $78 million contract with the St. Louis Rams Friday night, with $50 million in guaranteed money.

The Rams and the former Oklahoma quarterback concluded negotiations in time for the first full-squad workout, set for Saturday. The guaranteed money is the highest ever in the NFL.

It can get even better for Bradford since, after incentives, the contract can reach $86 Million.

Though his name is getting to be well-known, most people can’t recognize a photo of Bradford. Here’s a hint: If you see a guy around St. Louis reenacting the video below, that’s him.

You know what we’d do with that kind of money? Two chicks at the same time. We figure a dude with that kinda money could hook that up.

via ESPN

We know what you are thinking: “Gosh I wish there were more shows about football on, and specifically shows about the worst team in the league.”

Well buddy, we have a surprise for you!

KSDK-TV said Tuesday that it will launch a new, half-hour Sunday morning sports program in September as part of a new agreement with the St. Louis Rams.

Tentatively titled “Rams Tailgate,” the magazine-type program will showcase the lives of Rams players and coaches both on and off the field, the television station said, and “go beyond the traditional X’s and O’s of typical football pregame programs.”

See the marketing magic here is telling everyone it won’t be the same football show and then just make what we all know they will make: 30 minutes of Frank Cusumano blathering on about how excite Mike Martz was.

The need for this show arrived when KSDK realized that once the Cardinal’s season was over they had no way to interrupt good sports coverage with the crappiest sports coverage as possible just long enough to ruin the sporting event you can only watch on their station.

Well played.

via St. Louis Business Journal

The Blues Win Something! Hello? Hello?! They Won Something. No one cares?

Ok, we might have been overselling it somewhat. They didn’t really win anything…but their stadium did!

According to ESPN, out of the three major sporting venues in St. Louis, only the Blues’ home, the Scottrade Center, score perfect with no “critical violations”. The score is a percentage of vendors with health code violations out of the total vendors.

Scottrade Center
St. Louis Blues
Vendors with critical violations: 0%
Inspection report excerpt: No critical or major violations.

Perfection for Scottrade. Frankly this is not a surprise. The Blues ownership has done very well to help out their venue since signing on a few years back.

Busch Stadium

St. Louis Cardinals
Vendors with critical violations: 12%
Inspection report excerpt: No hand towels at a hand-washing sink caused two stands to incur critical violations.

Busch Stadium comes in second with 12%, because it was missing hand towels. This is surprising news in that we didn’t realize many Cardinal fans actually washed their hands when leaving the john between innings.

Edward Jones Dome
St. Louis Rams
Vendors with critical violations: 21%
Inspection report excerpt: One location got a critical violation for not having hand towels at a sink.

The Rams? Dead last naturally with 21% of the vendors in violation of the health code. We aren’t sure yet if this score includes all the shit the team laid all over the playing surface last year.

In case you were wondering, and we know you were, the over-all lowest scores were dropped at the Colorado Avalanche’s home at the Pepsi Center…

Pepsi Center
Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche
Vendors with critical violations: 67%
Inspection report excerpt: At one bar, inspectors found phorid flies, sometimes called coffin flies, in a bottle of cognac.

…the Miami Heat’s home base, American Airlines Arena, which is apparently not fit for a “king”…

American Airlines Arena
Miami Heat
Vendors with critical violations: 93%
Inspection report excerpt: Critical violations included several safety issues related to electrical wiring and such equipment as gas boilers.

…and Tropicana Field, home of the Rays…

Tropicana Field
Tampa Bay Rays
Vendors with critical violations: 100%
Inspection report excerpt: Several violations addressed dirty countertops, utensils and equipment. Although every report indicated a critical violation, all vendors met basic inspection standards to keep operating.

Looking at this list as a whole consider yourself lucky St. Louis, we have amazing clean sporting arenas compared to the rest of the nation. Oh and if you go to a Royals game, don’t use a knife:

Kauffman Stadium
Kansas City Royals
Vendors with critical violations: 62%
Inspection report excerpt: Inspectors cited one location with multiple violations for having several items that were either above or below safe temperatures; they found food debris on knives stored in a knife rack.

According to ESPN, our, last in the league but first in your hearts, St. Louis Rams are interested in signing general dick-head wide receiver Terrell Owens.

The Rams asked Owens through his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, if he would consider a serious contract proposal, even though they are not considered a playoff contender. Rosenhaus told the team Owens would definitely consider it, sources said.

One source said the Rams have gotten very aggressive in their pursuit of Owens and it’s possible that Owens will sign with the Rams or Bengals within the next 48 to 72 hours.

As a gossip site we can’t wait for this to happen! T.O. is pure crazy and with the added press on the Rams this year because of 1st overall pick Sam Bradford, something post-worthy will be bound to happen at least weekly. As a football fan though, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Bernie Miklasz agrees:

Let me get this straight: Spagnuolo, who strives to have a quiet, controversy-free working environment and a unified and unselfish team, is thinking about bringing in a reality TV-show star with a craving for attention?

It’s not as if the Rams are a couple of players away from becoming a contender.

So what would be the point of this? Selling tickets? Maybe. But adding Owens would also create a backlash. The Rams could lose customers because of him.

If the Rams brass are indeed wanting T.O. to play here it doesn’t bode well for the intelligence of this staff. I makes them seem desperate. Were they told they need to hit a win-mark to keep their jobs next year? I doubt it, but man moves like this makes it seem that way.

This “desperate” theme goes for T.O. too…why on earth would he want to sign with a team going to win a max of 4 games? Unless no one else wants him I don’t understa…oh. No one else does want him.

This T.O. / Rams thing is like the two fat kids at school that stopped trying to date the popular kids, just get together, get married and eat cookies in bed forever.

via ESPN and STLToday

“Hey, we know we suck so bad it hurts, but what if we let you rename our mascot! That help at all? …ok, well we’ve already printed the flyers so we’re doing this thing anyway.” – The St. Louis Rams

After 1,700 submissions the final round of voting has begun with your choices being (hold on to your hat now): Archie, Rammer, Rampage, Ramsey, and Rush.

Somewhere in St. Louis, Fredbird is shaking his head in disgust. You have until Friday the 23rd to go to StLouisRams.com had pick the shiniest turd in that list.

Here, because we know you want to know, 5 better suggestions for the Rams mascot:

5. “Sacked”

4. “Sheep with horns”

3. “Sexual Harassment Doll” – Point out on the doll where the other team touched you.

2. “The Safest Uniform for Sam Bradford”

1. “Power Bottom”

The Rams traded for Isaac Bruce today. Don’t get excited, he won’t be playing.

The St. Louis Rams traded with the San Francisco 49ers to acquire Bruce, the team announced today.  The Rams and Bruce will hold a news conference on Wednesday, June 9, at 12:30 p.m. in the Russell Training Center auditorium.

In his accomplished 16-year career, Bruce ranks fifth in the NFL with 1,024 career receptions, one of only six players in NFL history to have 1,000 career receptions.  He ranks second in the NFL with 15,208 career receiving yards.  His 91 career receiving touchdowns rank ninth in the league.

Ok. Cool and glad to see he cared enough to come back, even for a second, but the thing is…right now Bruce is like at least our 3rd best wide receiver. So…and we’re just throwing this out there…maybe don’t retire Isaac? Thoughts? I mean seriously.

Just something to think about. You won’t even be the oldest guy on the team…I hear the Rams are talking to Dan Dierdorf and this guy too who we’re pretty sure is dead.

via St. Louis Rams