Lions-Rams: That '70s Show

When the St. Louis Rams take their sorry, 0-7 act on the road to stumble up against the almost-as-sorry, 1-5 Lions on Sunday, nostalgia will run as thick as the soot in the Motor City air.

St. Louis and Detroit...playing a meaningless mid-season football game...Shout it from the rooftops, friends, the NFL as we used to know it is back! Parity is dead, and a rebirth of the '70s is upon us!

All this harks to a time when our kids weren't too fat and our celebrities too thin; back when we actually believed the sludge which is Coors was a premium brew, if only because their boss told us it had water from the Rockies in it; back when newspapers were king and blogs were...well, they weren't.

Light up a smoke, close your eyes, and try to take a deep breath. Now open 'em. Pro football never looked so good, eh?

Once again we can take great comfort in knowing that when the Rams (of St. Louis Cardinals vintage), and the Lions of dependable Detroit bump up against our squad, a win is in the offing!

(Continue to The Grill Room)

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Limbaugh's Loss Is His Gain

Rush Limbaugh won.

And with every word I type, or she types, or you read...his margin of victory increases.

The only person surer than I was that the right-wing, radio talk-show host had no shot at becoming an owner of the St. Louis Rams football team was Limbaugh himself.

And if I knew it, and Rush knew it, rest assured the NFL knew it too.

Commissioner Roger Goodell didn't just tip his hand, he clenched it in a fist when he addressed the Limbaugh issue earlier this week at the NFL owners meetings in Boston.

"I have said many times before that we are all held to a higher standard here," the commissioner said. "I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about. I would not want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position within the NFL. No. Absolutely not."

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Chalk Up Another Win for Dumb Jocks

It ended with a statement from the leader of the ownership group, Dave Checketts, Wednesday afternoon. It was pushed along by the NFL commissioner, the head of the players’ association, no less than two team owners, the head of the NAACP and (as always) the Rev. Al Sharpton.

But the very first pushback against Rush Limbaugh’s bid to own part of the St. Louis Rams came from a couple of dumb ballplayers.

Well, it’s obvious now, not so dumb.

(Continue to The Steele Drum)

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Rush Limbaugh Isn't the Only Problem

There is absolutely no way the NFL can allow Dave Checketts to own a team.

No, you read that right. True enough, there’s no way it can allow Rush Limbaugh to own a team, and that cannot be emphasized enough nor played down in any way. Actually, I don’t even believe that Limbaugh will ever get close to it. Just as I don’t believe Limbaugh represents as large a percentage of America’s views on anything as he and his proponents want us to think, I don’t believe three-fourths of the other NFL owners will be swayed by whatever money Limbaugh brings into the bid for the St. Louis Rams’ ownership, into overlooking the damage this resolutely dangerous man will do to their select group, their league, their sport and its reputation.

You think the resistance to Michael Vick’s return was noisy? Just wait and see what happens if Limbaugh ever gets that far with the NFL. It's even got players, normally content to speak only when trash-talked to first, prepared to revolt.

(Continue to The Steele Drum)

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