Could St. Louis come out of the Rams relocation business with an expansion team?

The people of St. Louis have a tiger by the tail. And they pull, hard.

The end result could possibly be a new NFL team in St. Louis.

As the powers that be grapple with power they don’t have in a Missouri court that will proceed to trial the litigation challenging the Rams’ move to Los Angeles, the possibility of an expansion team in the Part of a potential settlement of the case was launched in the league circle with the stature and influence to launch such concepts.

Although Rams owner Stan Kroenke has agreed to indemnify the rest of the league regardless of the verdict – and although lawyers have told other owners that the indemnity pledge is rock-solid – there are fears that the eventual judgment in the case is material. enough for Kroenke to try not to honor him. Thus, if and when other owners consider the possibility of paying for all or part of the compensatory (and possibly punitive) damages awarded to the St. Louis plaintiffs, a new team for St. Louis could be suspended as a means of closing. the case.

That’s not to say it will, but there is recognition in league circles that giving St. Louis a new team could help resolve the matter.

The reality, as some in league circles now recognize, is that the matter should have been settled months, if not years ago. Once the NFL exhausted all means of forcing the fight to arbitration, lawyers representing the league should have alerted the league to the very real possibility of home cooking in Missouri state court by a judge who showed no hesitation in speaking the truth to power.

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The league as a whole took notice of the current situation when the trial judge ruled in July that the financial information of several owners must be disclosed in anticipation of a possible award of punitive damages. And there is certainly some frustration over the failure of the lawyers who handled the case not to press the panic button earlier.

This is one of the most important responsibilities of outside lawyers in large firms who bill over $ 1,000 an hour and who value the opportunity to represent what they call “cost-insensitive clients.” They need to be willing and able to see when the case is going wrong, and they need to say something as soon as possible.

Currently, it is too late to avoid a trial. It may soon be too late to avoid a massive verdict. And while the league seems content to want to try its luck on the appeal, this process only starts after a Seinfeld Final-style lawsuit featuring multiple owners sworn in and asked aggressive questions that can potentially twist them and expose them to widespread scrutiny, criticism and embarrassment.

If the NFL promised a new team in, say, five or 10 or 15 years, the league would likely find another place to park a new team, increasing the league from 32 to 34 franchises. It would disrupt the simplicity and symmetry of the current squad setup, but the league lacked these things for decades before 2002.

The spread of the game will create an emergency to increase inventory, and one way to do that is to increase the number of teams. If this allows the tiger to avoid the amputation of its tail, there is even more reason to consider it.

Could St. Louis come out of the Rams relocation business with an expansion team? originally appeared on Pro Football Talk