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Gordo: Fisher loving LA after failing here

After four years of mind-boggling, soul-sapping failure in St. Louis, Rams coach Jeff Fisher is relishing his fresh start back home in Southern California.

He is an LA guy, after all, and he starred for USC at the Coliseum.

"The fan base is extremely excited based on some of the things that took place over the last couple of weeks," Fisher said to reporters Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. "So it's an exciting time for us.

"There is a lot of work ahead, believe me, as you could appreciate. We have a lot of things to do."

Among the first things to do was to shed defensive end Chris Long and middle linebacker James Laurinaitis, veterans who battled through injuries and played with pride despite the sweeping organizational incompetence that enveloped Rams Park.

Long and Laurinaitis were stalwarts in our community, too, but the Rams are putting all of that in their rear-view mirror.

"It's part of the process for planning for the future," Fisher said. "In particular, Chris and James were basically the faces of our franchise for years in St. Louis and I have total respect for their commitment not only on the field, but off the field, what they did in the community.

"As I sat there with James, explaining to him our decision, I mentioned to him that I've made many difficult decisions over the years, be it in the past with Eddie George or Keith Bulluck or Steve McNair. Friends with all of them and wanted to maintain that.

"I hope that with respect to Chris and to James, when it comes time to walk away from the game that they can retire as Rams."

But Fisher whacked Long and Laurinaitis along with underachieving tight end Jared Cook to create massive salary cap space for the franchise's return to Los Angeles.

That's cold business, but then again, tanking one NFL market to expedite a move back to a previous market is really cold business.

Fisher went through this before, of course, when the Houston Oilers became the Tennessee Titans.

"My job is to keep in mind the player needs, because 31 other teams right now in the league are staying put and they are going through an offseason program," Fisher said. "There's stability there and so it's how quickly can we bring stability from a player perspective into this offseason program."

The franchise zeroed in on Oxnard, Calif., for its spring practice; you will recall the team spent a bit of their training camp there with Dallas as Stan Kroenke and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones mapped out their relocation strategy for the Rams.

Players still on the Rams roster will assemble in Los Angeles next Friday to learn more about their new lives. The team is still considering sites for a team facility and training camp.

"At this point there is still a lot of uncertainty," Fisher said.

Fisher also noted that he will be too busy unpacking boxes to serve on the NFL Competition Committee, so he stepped down from his post. The league will have to find somebody else who is an expert on blocking-in-the-back penalties on punt returns.

He did throw St. Louis a bouquet, thanking fans for supporting his miserable product.

"I just want to take this opportunity to, you know, just thank the loyal St. Louis fans who came out week after week after week because they were truly loyal and they hung in there through thick and thin with us.

"I'm going to miss them and the organization is going to miss them but we're obviously moving on."

As are we.

Gordo's gonna have me loving Jeff Fisher in no time...

The Los Angeles Rams will win and the pundits from St. Louis will write that they played mediocre football purposely in order to ensure some fans would stay away.

I am sooooooo over Saint Louis!!!! Please put me out of their Missouri,,, errrr,,, misery.

After four years of mind-boggling, soul-sapping failure in St. Louis, Rams coach Jeff Fisher is relishing his fresh start back home in Southern California.

Really Gordo? It could be described as under achieving. But the mind boggling, soul sapping failure would better describe the previous years before Fisher.

really....the LA Rams were in st louis??? hmmm dont remember that.

Dem grapes are tasting SOUR. Take all the shots you can post-dispatch...while you still can. These will dwindle into the abyss, just not soon enough.

Oh, and BTW - you no longer have to complain about sub standard and mediocre football in the STL anymore. Hopefully you will rejoice for the players when they all become winners..starting in 2016, and, unfortunately for you, in Los Angeles, their rightful home.

I thought St. Louis was a Canadian Football town?

Man, Vinny's the hardest working reporter in the biz these days. Here's how he tells the Fisher story:

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/2016022 ... th-la-rams

Bonsignore: Jeff Fisher comes full circle with LA Rams


LA Rams head coach Jeff Fisher is set to coach team he once grew up idolizing. (Photo by Brad Graverson/Daily Breeze)

INDIANAPOLIS— Jeff Fisher could not have known the circle he was beginning as he climbed the steps of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum 49 years ago with his father. You don’t think about life goals and objectives when you’re a 9-year-old kid attending your first professional football game.

At the time, it was all Fisher could do just to take it all in as his heroes on the Los Angeles Rams warmed up before their game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

“If you had asked me the names of the Rams starting line up at the time, I probably could have,” Fisher recalled Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine.

Turns out that fall afternoon at the Coliseum was the beginning of a journey for the young football star, one that transported him to Taft High School in Woodland Hills to USC to the Chicago Bears to head coaching stops in Houston and Tennessee and St. Louis.

And now, finally, back home.

When the Rams step foot in the Coliseum sometime next season in their first game as the Los Angeles Rams since moving to St. Louis in 1994, the kid who grew up rooting for them with his dad will stand alongside them as their head coach.

And if you don’t think the nostalgia of that hasn’t been hitting the former USC safety like a pair of pass rushing defensive ends ever since the Rams were approved for relocation back to L.A., you probably don’t know Jeff Fisher very well.

“You know, when all this was coming together (Rams president) Kevin (Demoff) called me and asked: ‘Hey, do you want to be the coach of the Los Angeles Rams?” Fisher remembered.

For an L.A. kid who idolized Roman Gabriel and Merlin Olson and Deacon Jones, it nearly took his breath away.

But he gathered himself and replied: “Yes. I. Do.”

And so completed a life circle.

“It’s exciting,” said Fisher.

The strangeness of it all hasn’t quite worn off. When it was Fisher’s turn to talk to the media Wednesday at the combine he was introduced not as the St. Louis Rams coach, but as the Los Angeles Rams coach. Afterward he was asked if that still seemed weird to him.

“Yes, it is,” he conceded.

“You know,” he continued. “It’s exciting times for the franchise. We know that the fanbase is extremely excited based on some things that took place the last few weeks with respect to the commitment to season tickets at the coliseum. So it’s exciting times for us.”

And busy ones at that.

The move to Los Angeles is merely in the beginning stages. In fact, the Rams are still operating out of their St. Louis area offices in Earth City, Missouri, until moving to their temporary practice facility in Oxnard in early April.

“There’s a lot of work ahead, believe me,” Fisher said, “As you can imagine, there are so many things to do.”

Like putting together a roster, preparing for the draft and free agency and getting an offseason program up and running while simultaneously transferring an entire franchise from one city to another.

“You’re moving a franchise. You’re leaving one city and going to another, which is difficult from a fan standpoint, from a fan-base standpoint, but you have to take care of the detail things,” Fisher said. “As you go through that step-by-step process, from my standpoint, my job is to keep in mind the player needs. Thirty-one other teams in the league right now are staying put, and they’re going through an offseason program and there is stability there.

“It’s how quickly can we bring stability, from a player perspective, into this offseason program? Because we’re going to kick the season off like everyone else, and we potentially will have made a couple moves during the offseason.”

Fisher, along with members of the front office, is doing his best to update players and staff members on the relocation process, but with so much still up in the air – namely where the Rams will hold training camp and where their team headquarters will be through the 2016 season – there are still a number of unknowns.

And that creates a waiting game.

“At this point, there is still a lot of uncertainty,” Fisher said. “I can tell you that we’re going to have (the offseason program) at the Cowboys’ (Oxnard) facility,” Fisher said, “We’re currently trying to figure out and work out where we’re going to have training camp, because the Cowboys are going back there, and then, two, where we’re going to set up our facility. We have a meeting scheduled in Los Angeles a week from Friday with all the players, and we’re going to try to give them as much information as we can, from the standpoint of where this is going to take place and where that is going to take place.

“If we’re going to put a temporary facility someplace up north, you don’t want to put yourself in Newport Beach where you have a two-and-a-half-hour commute every day. So you can appreciate the things that we’re going through. The organization, Kevin, is doing a great job with each one of those steps. Hopefully we will have enough information for the players, to let them know.”

It’s something Fisher is actually experienced in. Back in 1997 he was the head coach of the Houston Oilers when they moved to Tennessee.

“I learned the most important thing is top put yourself in the shoes of the players. And I also learned eventually, things settle down. But the players need to understand eventually we have to play games.”

And that means the Rams running back onto the field at the Coliseum next September.

Jeff Fisher will be right there with them.

And so will that 9-year-old kid who climbed the steps of the Coliseum to watch the Rams play nearly 50 years ago.