In his weekly “Bernie’s Bits” column in the Post Dispatch, St. Louis sports scribe Bernie Miklasz opened a six pack of word whoop ass on the Rams. I know, a sports writer taking the Rams to task isn’t surprising. They suck. Royal. Bernie wasn’t talking about their on-field performance though, he was talking about the odd way they treat the media and the fans.
Devaney has become increasingly uncooperative and distant with the local media. The Rams limit access to coach Steve Spagnuolo. The team’s nervous first-year media-relations director sits in on harmless interviews in an apparent effort to protect the coach and GM. (From what, exactly?)
The Rams aren’t big on diplomacy. The Rams have lost 32 of 37 games but strut around as if they’ve won 32 of the last 37 games instead. The arrogance is out of step with reality.
This isn’t the first time we have heard complaints from local sports media about the Rams and their odd approach for a team as in desperate need of fan-love as this one, but this is the first time we’ve heard it as public as this.
Its really hard to believe that the Rams would consistently act this way to the fans and media, but it just makes all the more stunning since the Rams have a neighbor in the Blues who are the polar opposites. They have a great respect for the fans and thus give the media plenty of face time. For all the extra effort, the Blues were rewarded by the fans coming back well before the wins did, which is exactly what the Rams need right now. Instead we get fed BS about “moral victories”, and “good effort” which is all fine and dandy if I’m watching a bunch of 5th graders running around.
Oh and in case you just need one more reason to hate the Rams right now, Bernie sneaks this in at the end:
[Visiting Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers] quoted a Rams “official” as saying this: “Five years from now, we might be back in L.A. Just imagine that.”
Just sell the damn thing to Checketts. Someone that’s proven he knows how to run a franchise.