My Journey To Becoming an LA Rams Fan!

Back in the spring of 2010, on a whim, I wrote a short story about the first thing that came to mind while looking at a team’s championship ring, then posted it.

In succession, I wrote a few, then landed on Super Bowl III, the landmark game between the New York Jets and Baltimore Colts. The Colts were NFL champions but lost the game, which prompted me to write:

“Then came January 12th, 1969…wow!!

One look at this watch shows you how embarrassed the NFL was to lose to the upstart AFL. The corporate pressures, corporate culture and such were so great that within 2 years coach Don Shula was gone.

Within 4 years Carroll Rosenbloom would swap franchises with Robert Irsay, become owner of the Rams, would later marry Georgia, drown and she became Georgia Rosenbloom-Frontiere owner of the Los Angeles / St. Louis Rams. Of course this legitimized the AFL and NFL merging as well.

Everyone talks about the champion but take a look across the river and pay attention to the team that loses it. The after affects can be frightening…

Would all of this have happened had the Colts WON Super Bowl III?”

The next day I awoke to hundreds of messages from players from the ’60s and ’70s, regaling me with their stories and what they knew. Many were astounded that I tied the combatants of Super Bowl III to the Rams ownership of the time. Those hundreds of messages and the friendships that followed started the Taylor Blitz Times you’re reading today. This led to my series advocating for players and coaches who had been overlooked for the PFHoF, which is where Greene and I began our friendship.

Two LA Rams in particular are no longer with us: “Jaguar” Jon Arnett and the late Kevin Greene. Both were friends to Taylor Blitz for many years. I shared my sentiment Greene should be enshrined in Canton and 17 minutes after I published it, I heard from him.

Although we were already friends, I surprised “Captain Cutback” Jon Arnett with an article after I felt the old Los Angeles Rams, back in St. Louis for an alumni game, weren’t given a hero’s welcome for the crowd or the television audience.

Yet I digress…

Several years later, Kevin and Tara invited me to his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction in 2016, which was an absolute blast. After the ceremony, I was on a shuttle with all of his Rams teammates: Mike Wilcher, Buford McGee, Brett Faryniarz, Tim Tyrell, Shawn Miller, and TE David Hill. The jokes and stories they told went well into the night. Many glasses of wine were poured at Gervasi Vineyards, where the enshrinement party took place. It wasn’t just the players, but their families, wives, and even the widows of former players.

So how did a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan become an LA Rams fan? It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it was a journey that took years.

My migration from the Buffalo Bills to the LA Rams had been a long time coming. The OJ Simpson Wall of Fame omission was the final straw, but let’s face it…it mirrored my leaving small-town, small-minded Ohio to move to bold, progressive Southern California back in the mid-’90s. I needed a team that matched that attitude—bold with its moves, aggressive in acquiring talent, with a diverse fanbase and an attitude to match.

Buffalo never went after blue-chip talent unless it fell to them in the draft. They were never bold enough for me. The Rams, on the other hand, weren’t afraid to make the big move, acquire the big-name player, or take the kind of chance that could put them over the top.

The Rams? Drafted Jared Goff #1 overall, made it to Super Bowl LIII, then decided he wasn’t good enough to win it. They acquired Matt Stafford in a trade and made it to Super Bowl LVI. Think about that, then picture CB Jalen Ramsey, OLB Von Miller, WR Odell Beckham, and now reigning Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett—all brought in with epic moves.

The Bills made a big deal of signing LB Joe Andreesen, the nice-guy, feel-good story. The type of guy you could hang out with at the local bar. Not a playmaking defender—a dawg with teeth who can rip the football from your opponent to win big playoff games. It epitomizes the type of player you lose playoff games with and NEVER come close to winning a Super Bowl. They paraded this nonsense around on “Hard Knocks” and wonder why Josh Allen can’t make it back to the AFC Championship Game as he enters his 10th year.

Wasting time…on a bottom-feeder franchise that will remain exactly where it is.

The prevailing racial attitudes toward several Bills on social media had soured my relationship with Bills Mafia going back a decade. The rancor expressed when the team was thinking about signing Michael Vick, the comments about Stefon Diggs, Marshawn Lynch, and virtually any outspoken Black player leaving—I’m 100% done. Now, with the MAGA crowd embracing Josh Allen and OJ Simpson being removed from the team’s Wall of Fame, I don’t want shit to do with the Buffalo Bills anymore.

My 51 years of cheering for and following a bottom-feeder franchise and its redneck fanbase are over.

Now I’m fully embracing the Rams. I loved The Greatest Show on Turf days, as their style of play was instrumental in influencing my advocacy for those early ’90s Bills for the PFHoF. Then there’s the love I was shown by those former Rams, many of whom I still have great relationships with. Hell, I married my lovely wife in Lover’s Cove in Corona Del Mar, California. She’s an Orange County, Southern Cal gal. It’s where my heart is, where I feel most at home, and now where my favorite football team resides.

Those were the emotional anchors that ultimately fueled my decision.

I’ll see you at SoFi!