Chargers Rams face an uphill battle to win both games and the fight for Los Angeles

Wiki Article

SHUTTLING BETWEEN COSTA MESA AND IRVINE, Calif. -- The battle for the hearts and minds and, most importantly, wallets, of Southern California is on, between the (who just moved from San Diego and have mounted "Fight For L.A." signs all over this area, adopting it as an official marketing campaign) and the , whose arrival here predates them by a year but who it's fair to say are still struggling to establish a real foothold in Cali.As both teams practice in temporary training facilities and play in temporary stadiums for several years awaiting Jake Matthews Jersey the completion of Rams owner Stan Kroenke's football Taj Mahal in Los Angeles proper (Inglewood, to be precise), the stakes certainly seem high enough, both financially and in terms of branding, public relations and overall relevance in this glitzy media market. As for their on-field product, both teams are in the rebuilding proce s -- certainly in the case of the Rams -- or at least the re-tooling phase, when it comes to the Chargers, and it would behoove both to start winning football games ASAP.It's fair to say, at least in the short-term, that this "fight" might be more about mitigating lo ses than anything else, as declaring either franchise an actual victor may misinterpret the realities of these surroundings. Having spent the better part of a week recently in these parts going to practices, talking to fans and soaking up the atmosphere, neither club was exactly creating a steady buzz or moving the meter. Seems to me both face an immediate uphill climb.Off-field wins could be marginal and somewhat fleeting as they try to convert generations of fans accustomed to getting their in-person football fix on Saturdays at USC or UCLA and who have found myriad other ways to pa s lazy Sunday afternoons; who already have allegiance to an out-of-market NFL team or their own fantasy teams, or were wedded to being able to see the best games on TV with LA going 25 years without a team of its own before two were suddenly thrust upon them. On one particular sun-soaked, late afternoon August day, however, the "fight" seemed decidedly one-sided. For the second joint practice between the combatants, the Chargers have bused five miles up the I-5, from their camp base in Costa Mesa to the Rams' headquarters on the UC Irvine campus. The darker blue side of Orange County? Anyway, on this afternoon thousands of die-hards have braved the constant threat of traffic to show up. For a few hours at least, the energy is electric.Rams Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson is being mobbed by fans in one tent. The tennis courts nearby on campus are overflowing with fan groups who have set up tables. The stands stretching around the field are packed and pulsating. With a DJ pumping tunes throughout drills and the beer garden packed and wine flowing, it feels more like a night at the club or a banging happy hour than a training camp. But that's L.A., I suppose.Rams fans are yelling at and heckling Chargers players, the teams are literally engaged in fisticuffs several times during the two-plus-hour se sion, and the chants are lively and at times, inspired. "Go back to San Diego!" "You spelled San Diego wrong!" "Whose house? Rams house!" "Chargers suck! Chargers suck!" And, perhaps most to the point, cutting to the Chargers step-brother status when it comes to the stadium being built: "Pay your rent! Pay your rent!" Yet just the day before the Chargers had practiced in relative obscurity, the interactive fan activities they set up at their camp basically ignored, the food cart lines maybe three people deep at peak lunchtime, the large stands they set up perhaps a third full, with a few hundred fannies in the seats. And in the coming weeks the Chargers would play two preseason games at StubHub Center, a soccer-specific stadium at its construction, and could barely fill three-quarters of the beyond-modest 28,000 capacity, drawing a collective yawn (at best) from the locals.And two days after the spirited Rams-Chargers joint practice I rolled back to Irvine for another late-afternoon Rams practice, and the campus had become a ghost town. You could count the number of fans with an abacus (and that includes all the players' family members a sembled that day); those fancy hospitality tents were full of lonely beer taps waiting to be pulled, the parking lots were empty. Even the media presence was limited.These teams met at the L.A. Coliseum for a nationally televised preseason game in late August, and all the headlines were about the dismal ratings it provoked (lowest since 2004 was the consensus). They did combine for a total of nine wins in 2016, after all. Then a week later the got a hold of -- some costing le s than a nice house would have back in St. Louis -- and, well, Kroenke better get all of his friends in Malibu to pitch in to the cause. This won't be a cheap ticket; will there be sufficient demand for it over the long haul? There had best be plenty of Ws sprinkled in the standings for both of these teams, the sooner the better. Merely playing football eight Sundays a year probably isn't going to be enough. Simply building a state-of-the-art stadium might not be enough, either.Of course, you'll find no shortage of executives and officials from either club who will intimate this is all being gro sly overblown. Surely a market this ma sive, with so much collective wealth and with so many corporate headquarters nearby, can support two NFL franchises. Even if they're middling, I a sume. Any notion of competition for fans is quickly poo-pooed by both clubs -- even despite those ever-present "Fight For L.A." signs and the Chargers' social media videos speaking directly to this very competition for fans' attention -- and surely they are going to make for perfect bedfellows once they are actually sharing a stadium (despite the natural tension that will arise over construction and securing the best dates and schedule and sharing suites, etc.)."Well I think from Ventura County to Orange County and everything in between and the Inland Empire is like what, 16, 17, 18 million people," Chargers general manager Tom Telesco said. "So I think there's enough of a market that we can flourish and the Rams can flourish, too. For us it's just about trying to battle for wins on the field, and not really so much about battling for market share. I think if you put a good product on the field and you win some games people will notice. "There are a lot of people in this area that have grown up without a team here and who have kids, and those kids grew up rooting for other teams. So there are a lot of families here looking for a team to root for and to follow and support, and there's millions of people who live here, so through USC football and Rams football and Chargers football I think there's plenty for everybody."Rams coach Sean McVay sounds as if he may have been privy to similar talking points."I think the biggest thing for us is just focusing in on ourselves. I've got a lot of respect for (Chargers rookie) Coach (Anthony) Lynn and their coaching staff and their players and what they've done, and being in the AFC it is a little bit different. And I think as an organization we will continue to focus on what we can do, and that's daily improvement and getting better, and I think if our product is good then this fan base is big enough. "There are enough great football fans in this city to be able to support two quality teams and two quality products. And as long as we take care of what we're supposed to, with the way the NFL is and how many different people want to come see games, I think it will take care of itself."Maybe so, and maybe not.There are definitely a few other owners who have at least a bit of consternation about whether this all happened too quickly. Especially with the headed to Las Vegas around the same time the new L.A. stadium will be built, and Vegas only a few hours drive away for many in this same Southern California region."There could certainly be some buyer's remorse here," said one league source in regular contact with owners about relocation i sues. "Did all of this (the Rams, Chargers and Raiders all announcing moves in quick succe sion) have to happen this quickly, and will this over-saturate the market? Now, you won't hear any of that coming out of the Rams or Chargers offices, certainly not publicly, and their busine s operations would maintain that even with their combined $1.3 billion in relocations fees due to paid out over close to a decade (make no mistake, that subsidy to the other 29 franchises had plenty to do with these teams getting sufficient votes to leave their former homes), this will prove to be a smart investment over time once Inglewood is full of sponsors and suite holders and fans. Even with the Rams already having to announce months ago that the stadium will delayed at least a year already, which will certainly cost the franchises millions more in the short term.It came as surprise to some of these outside owners that needing new coaches both clubs, instead of luring someone like Jon Gruden out of retirement or trading for Super Bowl winner Sean Payton, hired low-profile, first-time head coaches, which ran counter to some conventional wisdom that landing a rock star-type coach would add some sizzle and get more people talking about the new football teams in town.The task is more daunting for the Chargers, as they had to literally move operations (albeit just a few hours up the freeway) in time for offseason workouts and then OTAs, much le s training camp. Gutting their old practice facility in San Diego, finding new digs, securing a place to play at StubHub Center, getting players relocated and on the same page made for extra work for everyone, and made Lynn's transition to head coach outside the norm. "The good news is I don't have anything to compare it to, because this is my first gig," Lynn said, "So this is completely normal to me. And I think Elijah Wilkinson Jersey our organization handled the transition really well and they made our lives a little easier for us, and now we're settled in and I'm just worried about playing football. I don't really see it as a rivalry."Okay, but what about from the busine s side of the building?"Now that's a different story," Lynn said, "but I don't pay much attention to the outside stuff, to be honest with you, because I can't get caught up in that. We've got marketing people and they do a heck of a job, and our first day here at camp it was on fire and there were people everywhere. It was really impre sive. So our marketing department has done a heck of a job and they're 'Fighting for L.A.' and we're trying to support them and back them up by fighting for each other and being the best that we can be."All but one person in the organization from what I gathered, the current player most synonymous with the Chargers, made the move north, leaving their former homes in San Diego. Quarterback , who along with longtime favorite target had the most emotions stirred with the relocation, is opting to commute (he already lived in the northern part of San Diego, so that cuts down some on traffic), choosing to remain rooted where they are, with a brood of children involved in school and neighborhood activities and that area home for his entire career. "We kind of wanted to stay put and try this through the fall and see how it goes," Rivers said. "After 13 years in one spot, it's difficult to just pick up and move, and I think we'll be able to make it work. It's about an hour each way, but it's been a good natural progre sion with the natural emotions you would expect. But it's grown into being really excited and really fired up getting to see the start of camp and getting to see what this environment has a chance to be like."The Rams know this drill all too well. Their move a year ago from St. Louis was more profoundly trying by pure geography alone. It was a scramble finding multiple locations to practice, and they were unable to carry over the initial momentum from having nearly 100,000 fans pack the Coliseum for their preseason opener. The on-field product was awful, particularly on offense; they were quickly mired in a quarterback controversy, and head coach Jeff Fisher didn't make it through the initial season in L.A. Suboptimal, to say the least.Now, they open 2017 with questions swirling about the readine s of quarterback , for whom they mortgaged the future to move up and take first overall in 2016, and their best player, , is vowing to extend his contract holdout well into the regular season, having watched countle s le ser players get over-compensated by this front office in past years and wanting to become the highest-paid defensive player in the history of the game (some would say rightfully so). But hey, at least it's not the summer of 2016, moving halfway acro s the country!"Yeah, last year it was a lot," said Rams special teams coach John Fa sel, who was the interim head coach a year ago after Fisher was fired. "Just thinking of the football part of the move and then with their families and all of that, it doubled it, at least. So it's been nice to be in familiar territory, at least for me, and just do football. And this year we're only here (at UC Irvine) for three-and-a-half weeks, compared to last year when it was six weeks. So I think they'll be some advantages to being here a second year as a football team."While this summer has been ominous on many levels, it's hardly all doom and gloom. Los Angeles opens up unique opportunities, and the Chargers may end up being the stepchild in this relationship but there seems to be a chance to do more. The Rams didn't establish a face-of-L.A. player last year -- they tried like heck with running back but he wilted badly after a stellar rookie season in St. Louis due in largely part to an incompetent offensive line. And, again, Donald, their premier player, is an interior defensive line (not sexy) and is holding out.The Chargers have a bevvy of potential breakout players on a quality roster, and could surprise people in the AFC West if they can ever stay remotely healthy. , a fairly unstoppable pa s rusher as a rookie who can sound a bit like Jeff Spicoli without trying and who told me has attempted to surf, may be atop that list. This could be a menacing defense led by a stout front seven, and Bosa, who could definitely rock a poncho if he so desired, could become a draw for the team."The opportunities in L.A. are obviously going to be greater than in San Diego, not taking anything away from San Diego," Bosa told me. "But this is one of the biggest cities in the world, a huge market, but they can chew you up and spit you out. So you'd better come to play, and we obviously know that there a lot of sports and a lot of entertainment here and plenty of different things to do in L.A., so we've got to fight to win some people over."Rivers said: "I think obviously that 'Fight for L.A.' has kind of become the rallying cry, and I think as players we really -- I know it's that boring clich answer -- but control what you can control. And what we can control is finding a way to win more football games and be a group of guys who fight hard and we come out and people go, 'Shoot, I want to go check the Chargers out.' And we know that that takes time."But I think that to me, just in general, human nature, people that are real, that they can relate to, that are genuine, that play hard -- those are the kind of teams that people like to pull for. So I think if we can just be that, be ourselves, and not go, 'Hey, we need to go have this master scheme' -- and that's not to sleight the hard work I know the upstairs people (in the marketing office) have done -- but for us as players it's like, 'Let's go out and cut it loose and play,' and maybe people go, 'Shoot, let's go down to the StubHub on Sunday.' Turn it into that sort of team that they want to pull for."Luring fans to that tiny, soccer-specific bandbox of a stadium, off the grid in Carson, comes with challenges, however, as evidenced by the preseason. It has advantages as well, in that every seat is close to the action, the vibe is intimate and not sprawling and there are no nosebleed seats. But it also lacks all of the bells-and-whistles that teams are rushing to add on to incentivize fans to leave their couches and brave the parking lots to attend games, and the facility itself is anything but a magnet.It has pa sed the early Ray Buchanan Jersey tests on feasibility. The locker room set-up, even for the visitors (it's spread out over two areas but they are in close proximity), isn't bad, the sidelines are plenty big enough and visiting teams that played there said their trainers, equipment guys and support staff had no major i sues getting in and out (there were problems with the pre s box and with getting all of the cameras in location it requires for national broadcast of an NFL game, but the Chargers were working closely with the league to addre s them)."It was actually pretty awesome," said general manager John Schneider, whose team helped christen StubHub Center for NFL football in the preseason opener. "It was a cool place to play and we had no major i sues and the guys seemed to like it. Our operations guys made a list of a few things for the Chargers after we left, but we didn't have any major i sues at all."The true measures of this fight are ahead. The Chargers' home opener is Week 2, against the , while the Rams host the ( and without much pizzazz themselves) in Week 1. The teams do not meet in the regular season, and thus their on-field fight, in however much there is one, won't be renewed until more joint practices and exhibition games next summer."I like to say, in the NFL, you only have to be better than three teams," Rams GM Les Snead told me, "and really that's, for us, San Francisco, Seattle and Arizona. And they've got to be better than three teams (Denver, Oakland and Kansas City in the AFC West). So I'm not sure it's us versus them."As I think I've mentioned earlier, hey, if they finish one in the NFL and we finish two, heck, everybody is happy. If we finish 31 and they finish 32, I'm not so sure we won a whole lot. So at the end of the day I think, hey, be better than those three teams. That's all you've got to do."In most markets, that's sound enough logic. Here, they might need to win with some style points, too. By next summer, perhaps one of these franchises will have experienced some degree of winning and sustained succe s. Maybe there is overflow demand at StubHub and maybe the Coliseum is close to full. Or could be this all goes down without much fu s at all and concern continues to mount from SoCal all the way to Park Avenue.But for the first time in a generation two NFL teams are about to kick off a season around here, separated by mere miles, after the Raiders and Rams already took off for what they thought would be greener pastures. Alas, sometimes history does repeat.
https://eduardoetgt65319.wikififfi.com/236207/bills_hire_brian_daboll_from_alabama_as_oc_before_patriots_can_bring_him_back_in_fold
Click here Click here