So you went out and bought your Rams Super Bowl Champion T-shirts. You high-five everyone you see with the gold and blue jerseys. You talk about Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald as if you’ve been following them for years.
NOW you”re a Rams fan.
Where were you in 1995 when Georgia Frontiere sabotaged the teams so she could get millions of dollars to move it to St. Louis? I’ll tell you where you were. You were in front of your TV watching another team and saying “who cares what happens to those losers?”
Where were you in the long 20 years between that disaster and the day the Rams finally came back to LA? I’ll tell you where you were. You were rooting for the Packers. Or the Cowboys. Or the Raiders. Or the Niners. You didn’t give a flying fig about the Rams. “They’re in St. Louis now. Let them stay. We get all our NFL games live without blackouts. Whoo hoo!”
Where were you when the team finally returned in 2015, looking for fans. The stadium was half full on game days. But you watched other games at home in the comfort of your living room. “The Rams? They stink.”
Even in 2019, when the team returned to the Super Bowl with a young quarterback named Goff, you scoffed at the final score of 13-3. “I always knew they were losers.”
Oh, but now that this gallant team has won one of the most exciting Super Bowls in history, now that Matthew Stafford engineered one of the great fourth-quarter touchdown drives in history, now that Kupp made that great catch in the last minute, now that A. Donald stopped the scrappy Bengals with two consecutive defense gems, now you want to wear the jersey, bask in the reflected glory of the trophy coming to LA.
Listen, buddy. I’ve been rooting for and agonizing over this team since Deacon Jones played Defensive End and Roman Gabriel was the quarterback. I watched with excitement and ultimate angst when Vince Ferragamo almost brought the trophy home against the mighty Pittsburgh Steelers in 1979. I even rejoiced when the great Kurt Warner won the Rams’ last championship in 2000, even though my beloved team was 2000 miles away.
I wore my Rams jersey on Superbowl Sunday. It was 5 years old.
I’m just sayin’. You can pretend all you want to that you love this team. But you’ll never love it the way a true fan, who has suffered the angst and humiliation these last 50 years, feels after the win.
You? You’re a pretender. And not the good Chrissy Hynde kind, either.
Mark Bruce, Writer 