* – L.A. Rams only
The last time a team named the “Los Angeles Rams” won the NFC West division title?
In 1985. In the one and only season of the Dieter Brock Era.
A long time ago, then. A very long time — 32 seasons, actually.
Which means fans of the current, L.A.-based Rams have permission to wildly celebrate the club clinching the division title today with a 27-23 victory away to the Tennessee Titans.
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We don’t see much college football, in France. Our TV package includes stations with college matchups, but the West Coast games rarely begin before 10 p.m., Paris time, ending at 2 a.m. or so … and night games on the West Coast? Well, it’s an up-all-night thing, over here.
But we happened to find Army versus San Diego State in the Armed Forces Bowl on ESPN tonight (which we get) at a not-horrible hour. And I knew San Diego State runs the ball all the time, behind Rashaad Penny, and assumed Army would run the triple-option … and I love (the increasingly rare) games involving two run-oriented offenses.
And when it was over, I was thinking of all the triple-option coaches I had covered as a journalist at The Sun, back in California and, in particular, the Godfather of the double-wing offense, Don Markham.
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It was Abu Dhabi’s idea, and not a bad one.
Take the tennis-free final weekend of the year and jam into it a three-day, six-player competition grandiosely titled “World Tennis Championship”.
Target the highest-ranked players in the world by offering fat appearance fees for a few days of action in the Gulf sun, with another $250,000 set aside for the winner … and presto! A semi-significant, non-points (exhibition) event to liven up the peak season in the Emirates and give the tennis pros a bit of warm-up action on their way to Australia for the start of the next season.
Having worked in Abu Dhabi for six-plus years, I was around for several editions of this event, about to begin its 10th go-round.
Everything worked like a charm, a time or three. The tournament also has stumbled more than once because of the often-late withdrawal of players pleading illness or injury, requiring organizers to swap in some lesser-known gentleman 10 or 20 ranking places behind the guy who no longer is going to appear.
First, the high points:
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If Vin Scully had not followed the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles …
Dick Enberg would be the best-known sports broadcaster in the history of Southern California. Rather than “the other really good guy in L.A., after Vinny.”
This came to mind today after hearing that Enberg died in La Jolla at age 82.
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No, not Lonzo Ball. The jury is out on him … and may remain sequestered for a year or three. No idea how that verdict will come down.
Talking here about Kyle Kuzma, the 27th pick in the first round of this year’s NBA draft.
The 6-foot-9 forward Kyle Kuzma who scored 38 points and made seven three-pointers (see it here) in the Lakers’ 122-116 victory at Houston tonight, the result which ended the Rockets’ 14-game winning streak.
Kuzma, 22, is averaging 17.4 points per game, with 6.6 rebounds. He looks like one of the prizes of the 2017 draft, and the fact that the Lakers got him without actually holding the 27th pick is a credit to management, because Kuzma looks like a key performer for the club, going forward.
How did this work out?
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This is a guy thing, pretty much, isn’t it. Or maybe a slob thing.
Wearing things forever. Until they break or split or go to pieces and fall off your body. Or, perhaps, until your significant other gets sick of looking at your rags and throws some of them out when you are not paying attention.
I have a new entry in the “worn forever” category.
A pair of flip-flops that lasted eight years. Yes, eight.
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The moment the danger hit home was about halfway through the fourth quarter in Seattle, when a bunch of rowdy/giddy Rams posed on their sideline, celebrating what would finish as a 42-7 rout of the Seahawks.
The expression “all but clinched” the NFC West ricocheted around the NFL, on Sunday, when mentioning the game.
And anyone who has followed an emotion-driven sport like football knows the enormous dangers surrounding 1) premature celebration of the sort we saw on the Rams sideline, as well as 2) the “all but” in the “all-but-clinched” designation.
The Rams have a 96 percent chance of winning the division and a 97 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to the The New York Times’s NFL Playoff Machine, but I am thinking they run a real risk of being run down on the final weekend of the season and ceding the NFC West to Seattle.
Why?
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The Los Angeles market has been slow to embrace the revenant Rams.
Thousands of empty seats at the Coliseum, the Rams’ home again while the $2.1 billion stadium in Inglewood is built, can be seen in the background of TV shots.
Late last week an L.A. podcast pundit sarcastically said, “I’m seeing tons of Rams jerseys everywhere.” When someone said, “You’re joking, right?”, the pundit said, “Actually, I’m seeing more Philadelphia jerseys. Still.” (The Rams and Eagles played in the Coliseum on October 10, and Eagles fans seemed to make up half the crowd, despite the Rams’ 9-3 record.)
But that was before the Rams went to Seattle and destroyed the Seahawks this afternoon, 42-7, lifting them to a 10-4 record and allowing them to take a two-game lead over Seattle in the NFC West standings with two games to play.
Los Angeles, like New York, is a market with so many big-league teams that many fans are shameless front-runners.
The Rams just gave them cause to climb on the bandwagon because the Seahawks 1) played in two of the previous five Super Bowls, 2) have reached the playoffs for five seasons running, 3) won the NFC West three of the past four seasons and 4) are coached by Pete Carroll, formerly of USC and 5) they were just trampled by the Rams
But before we come at the club with open arms inside Aaron Donald jerseys, the club needs to keep some key concepts in mind.
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OK, yes, I panicked when I saw the headline and first paragraph of this story on ESPN.com tonight.
“Dodgers part ways with Adrian Gonzalez in five-player deal with Braves.”
“The Atlanta Braves traded outfielder Matt Kemp to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon McCarthy, Scott Kazmir and Charlie Culberson, the teams announced Saturday.”
You can see how that could be alarming: Kemp, 33, a player the Dodgers soured on in his first stint with the club, returning to Los Angeles?
Why?
What sort of madness had gripped the Dodgers’ front office?
They get one game from a championship, and they think they can take the final step by adding Matt Kemp, a guy who doesn’t care about being good?
Then I got down to the “salary dump” portion of the story, and it made some sense.
And then I saw this story in the Los Angeles Times, and it made a lot more sense.
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The Los Angeles Rams can take a huge step toward winning the NFC West for the first time since 2003 if they win in Seattle on Sunday.
The Seahawks can be had.
The Legion of Boom is decimated, Seattle’s linebackers are wobbling, the offensive line is porous and the club might be 5-8 instead of 8-5 if not for one man:
But that is one hell of a man.
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