My Crumbling Marriage With the St. Louis Rams

For the last twenty years, I have been married to the St. Louis Rams. The Rams have been my heart and soul. To borrow a phrase I’ve used myself many times, possibly in something many of you have read before: The Cardinals are their team and the Rams are my team. In this marriage, I’ve had to put up with my share of annoyances—the first three Rams seasons of my adulthood garnering a combined record of 6 wins and 42 losses was not pleasant, for an obvious example. But they were still my team. A good marriage doesn’t end because one of its members doesn’t age gracefully because the other member shouldn’t care. That’s not what it’s about. Marriage is about undying loyalty; it’s about being there for somebody when things are rough for them and it’s about them being there for you when you need somebody by your side.

And the sad reality is that my marriage with the St. Louis Rams is crumbling.

That is not to say that the marriage is over, but it’s getting there. And now, I must come to terms with what this marriage is and what it will be going forward. This isn’t about what it was in the past—I will always love Super Bowl XXXIV and will try to at least be civil enough with the Rams to retain some kind of joint custody for the sake of Vince.

The truth of the matter is all that I can ask of the Rams is loyalty. I was amped from the get-go before 2010, coming off the single worst three year stretch in NFL history, because I was enamored enough with the very idea of my relationship with the Rams that I was willing to accept something that others won’t accept. And the Rams gave up on that. And you know what? They don’t deserve me. I’m better than that.

And now that the Rams are openly cavorting with somebody else, I need to do one of three things. The first thing is something that I will tell you right off the bat will not be happening—ignoring it. Plenty of people have ignored adultery in their marriages or, worse, have rationalized that it’s their fault. And you know what? It’s not my fault. The Rams are cheating on me because they think they can do better. They’re wrong, but what do I know about marriage? Less than the Rams owner, whose marriage is the greatest business move he ever made, that’s for sure.

The second thing I can do is leave the marriage. It’s unhappy; my partner seems unwilling to change; this makes sense. In a lot of ways, I wish I had the strength to do it. But I don’t. I keep coming back to the happy memories and stupidly telling myself that things can be as good as they were years ago, even as the rational part of me knows that this is an impossibility. I won’t discount the possibility of divorce, but for better or worse, I’m not quite ready emotionally to go there yet.

The third thing I can do is accept that I am in an open marriage. I can accept that the Rams only care about me to the extent that I benefit their bottom line. I can accept that the only reason the Rams haven’t left me is because they don’t yet know for absolute certain that they can do better than me. And I can react by cheating right back on them. Now, I don’t want to cheat on them for revenge, but rather as a way to quell my own general lack of fulfillment. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be told that I can’t.

I’m not investing another penny in the Rams until they show the loyalty they haven’t showed in me since the end of the Georgia Frontiere era. And while I fear the unchartered territory of NFL courtship, it may be the only realistic option for me to ever feel what I once felt (and sometimes, against my better judgment, still feel) with the Rams. And although my potential suitors aren’t perfect, they may indeed be a viable alternative to staying the course with the current state of heartache and misery.