The return of the Rams to Los Angeles was supposed to be a feel-good story for a franchise returning to the city it was born in. Instead, it has been an utter disaster. And apparently that disaster isn’t just limited to the play of the team on the field.
According to Pro Football Talk, Rams players are not allowed to speak to the owner of the team — Stan Kroenke.
That news came courtesy of cornerback Janoris Jenkins, who is now a member of the New York Giants but spent 2012-15 as a member of the then St. Louis Rams. He spoke to the Going Deep with Amani & Dan show on NBC Sports radio and let loose on the apparent lack of a relationship between player and team owner.
“It’s a big difference, to be honest with you,” Jenkins said. “Just being here in New York and seeing [G.M.] Jerry Reese every day at practice, it just motivates me because I never seen that in St. Louis. It was always the coaches not the owners coming around to see the players. It was always, ‘Don’t speak to Stan Kroenke’ when I was in St. Louis to here in New York, everybody is everybody, everybody is treated the same, the owner just walks around and communicates with you and gives you a reason to play football to know that you’re playing for someone that is always around and always cares and that you can communicate with.”
Never mind the fact that Jerry Reese is the general manager of the Giants, not the owners, but it certainly appears as if the common knowledge within the Rams locker room and organization as a whole was that players should avoid speaking to the owner.
It also appears that there just was never a comfort level within the Rams locker room for Jenkins. A lot of seems to stem from the fact that the owner who was writing the checks wasn’t really there for the players.
“I felt I was just playing for my teammates and my coaches, I never seen the owner, once again, they told us not to speak to him when he come around and I just felt like I wasn’t comfortable there,” Jenkins said. “They said, if you ever see Stan come around the facility don’t speak to him, once I heard that my rookie year I just knew I wasn’t going to be comfortable, because when he came around it was like everybody better be straightforward nobody better not look at him, it was like kind of crazy.
Could it be that Kroenke was using his ownership of the Rams to further some larger entertainment goal in Los Angeles? I know, that would be the most shocking revelation in history.
Still, this type of information is a huge hit to the chances of the Rams turning things around. While coach-player relationships matter most, the mood of the team and the feeling of the franchise comes from the top down, starting with ownership.
Until Kroenke treats the Rams as more than an means to an end and gets a good, competitive product on the field things may not change for the better in Los Angeles.
But hey, they’ll soon have a shiny new stadium to not fill…
The honeymoon is over in LA with #rams in 3rd Quarter down 28-0. @EmptySeatsPics pic.twitter.com/4loZcqAb6s
— David P (@bloodyeyeballs) December 11, 2016
Let’s just say Kroenke’s honeymoon in La La Land is over, and this bit of news doesn’t help matters much.
