[dieterbrock]

Well, when San Diego, errr, I mean the Chargers... tank this season and draft Sam Darnold I'm thinking the local charm would pay off....
But Goff should have us in the playoffs by then so should be no biggie...

[TomSlick]

I think we should only draft players from Slippery Rock University, the powerhouse team out of the East.

[Rams1PlateSince1976]

There have certainly been some local heroes who have lived up and even exceeded their draft status.

Nolan Cromwell comes to mind. 2nd round pick and All-Pro multiple years. Wish he would have caught that #$%*@$^%#!$@&!$**! bradshaw pass that hit him in the chest in Super Bowl 1. Kept Nolan out of the Hall of Fame.

[Hacksaw]

There have certainly been some local heroes who have lived up and even exceeded their draft status.

Nolan Cromwell comes to mind. 2nd round pick and All-Pro multiple years. Wish he would have caught that #$%*@$^%#!$@&!$**! bradshaw pass that hit him in the chest in Super Bowl 1. Kept Nolan out of the Hall of Fame.

And definitely helped keep us to 1 SB W.

[RamsFanSince82]

Cromwell? A local hero? He was born and grew up in Kansas, and played college football at Kansas.

[Hacksaw]

Cromwell? A local hero? He was born and grew up in Kansas, and played college football at Kansas.

But 82, were talking Nolan played his entire 11-year career in Los Angeles. No doubt the "Ransom Rambler" wasn't a local LA boy gone good but he played as much football (especially on a high level) here as he did in Kansas since he was in the 5th or 6th grade.

Still I catch your drift.
Are you from there? My mothers side is.

One of my fav all time Rams.
@Throwback Joe gave me a nice 21 home jersey because he's a fav. , , , like this one.

Cromwell was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams as a defensive back in the second round, with the 32nd pick, in 1977 and played his entire 11-year career in Los Angeles. He was the Rams' nickelback in 1977 and 1978 and a standout on special teams; running a fake field goal as a holder was Cromwell's specialty. In 1979, he won the starting free safety position and was named second-team All-NFC.

He was named the 1980 NFC Defensive Player of the Year by UPI and by the Kansas Committee of 101, and was named by Football Digest as the NFL Defensive Back of the Year in four consecutive years: 1980 through 1983. He was also selected to play in four consecutive Pro Bowls, from 1980–1983. Cromwell was part of the Rams defenses that performed well in the late 1970s as well as the Top 10 defenses of 1985 and 1986 when Rams qualified for the playoffs five of his last six seasons.

At the time of his retirement, he was the Rams' all-time leader in interception return yardage with 671 yards on 37 interceptions. After retirement, he was named to the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team and the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame. The Professional Football Researchers Association named Cromwell to the PRFA Hall of Very Good Class of 2014 [3]

Along with his various accomplishments on the field, Cromwell also starred in the 1986 Rams promotional video "Ram It," rapping "I like to ram it, as you can see, nobody likes ramming it more than me[4]" in a video that described him as "Hollywood handsome, Dodge-city tough."
-
So who's to say the girls trying out to be Rams cheerleaders won't make out nicely?
Nolan married former Rams cheerleader and Miss Hollywood USA 1980-81 Mary Lynne Gehr. They have two children, Lance and Jennifer.

[CanuckRightWinger]

I had been out of the Canadian Navy about a year and was a rookie Marketing guy for one of the national railways, when I snuck outa the office to do "Sales Calls".....and flew down (on spec) to LAX on that January Friday in 1980 on Western Airlines (for the baby-boomers out there, "the ONLY way to fly" ad tagline...long ago defunct) and ended up scoring a $30.00 face-value SBXIV seat halfway up the Rose Bowl at the 10 yard line...
...for $50 US in the lobby of the Pasadena Hilton on Saturday afternoon...

...BTW, I was at the end of the field where Ram RB Lawrence PerfectSBQBR McCutcheon hit Rod Smith for the TD that had Los Ramos leading the media-darling Steelers 19-17 going into the 4th Quarter.

BTW....for the literary critics out there doing the grammar marking today, YES, I know what a run-on sentence is, thank you!)

Anyhoo, Terry HorseShoes Bradshaw was the SBXIV MVP that day despite throwing 3 picks.....BUT, it was the potential 4th interception that Nolan Cromwell muffed, running at full speed, towards the LOS, that could've won it all for the Rams that Sunday afternoon. Like Steeler legendary OC Mike Webster opined. "If Cromwell hangs onto the ball, the only thing that was going to catch him was a .45!!"

Bradshaw's long bomb to John Stallworth, microns above Rod Perry's outstretched ring-finger sealed the deal for Pittsburgh that day....and it also was the Sports Illustrated Cover Shot that week with the caption,
"Superbowl XIV, This One Was Really Super!"

Rams FS Nolan Cromwell was a wishbone QB at Kansas, and the Ransom KS product was also a NCAA Decathlete participant.....talk about your ALL AROUND ATHLETE EH!!

[Hacksaw]

The best marketing strategy includes a winner. That approach never fails.

[dieterbrock]

I think we should only draft players from Slippery Rock University, the powerhouse team out of the East.

Is that like the powerhouse West Texas A&M where coaching genius Steve Spagnolo found future hall of famer Keith Null?

[CanuckRightWinger]

I totally agree Hacksaw!
The best strategy for fan adoration is to be a perpetual winner/playoff contender a la the Patriots, Packers, Steelers et al. No argument from me on that score.

What I was pointing out is that Los Ramos will be in a unique situation in 2017...a la the Giants of New York, sharing the New York market with the Jets.

The Chargers are going to be competing for the hearts & minds of LA NFL fans starting ....um, oh yeah, last month.

I dunno about the rest of you guys, but I did NOT like being held in the fringes of insignificance by NFL media types (other than the few GSOT glory years). Before we drafted his son, Howie Long used to poo-poo the Rams something fierce. As soon as GSOT was done, Los Ramos were a NFL pariah to the media.....we were never spoken of, never held in high esteem......and basically ignored. The Rams were the Midwest version of the Jaguars, Bills et al.

....and it wasn't just the media that marginalized the Rams for those two decades in Saint Louis eh! Remember how it always seemed the zebras gave the calls to the other teams....especially the critical ones???!!! The NFL League Office was not so enamoured with Georgia's Franchise that had abandoned the second largest market in America either!!!

I did not like that feeling.....ie. the team I root for is just a wallflower franchise, only there to round out the field.

But, guys will say, "Hey Canuck, we are NOW back in the second biggest market in the USA....so we're redeemed, right??!!"

ME: Um, how many Oscars would Demoff's movie
"Our Triumphant Return To A Loving Fanbase" (if it had been a movie),
um, how many Academy Awards would Demoff dog-of-rollout have won huh??
Maybe for Best Costume?? (after all, our unis are still pretty decent)

Face it....the Magical Homecoming rollout operation, directed by Kevin NoDarrylF.Zanuck! Demoff was an absolute disaster.....kinda like Operation Eagle Claw, Jimmy Carter's military attempt to free the 52 US hostages in Iran in April 1980.
4-12 record, unwatchable Offense, Atlanta scored as many TDs in LA in one game, as the Rams did all season!, trotting out the Future Hope and then witnessing Jared FacePlant Goff humiliated to 0-7 with a historically-bad 11% sack ratio, terminating the HC, having the franchise braintrust feuding with Ram HOFer Eric Dickerson, losing to arch-rival 49ers...TWICE!! etc etc etc
I mean, talk about crushing the consumers' sense of rising expectations eh!

By the end of the season, the Rams looked pathetic in suffering from that Can of WhipAzz that the Cardinals dumped on our heads in the finale!

In a normal season, a NFL team can make some moves to win back the fans the next year.....in a normal situation where the hometown fans have been in place for decades and have only one NFL franchise to invest into (financially & emotionally) in the local market.

But, that's not the case here in Los Angeles in 2017.....is it?

My Drafting USC/UCLA Idea was just a marketing one for Demoff to consider. He hasn't had too many good ones of his own the past year or so IMO.....and I do not want to be the marginalized LA Clipper NFL team in SoCal, okay??!!

....so I will continue to suggest and opine ways for us not to be again cheering for a wallflower franchise. To me, Insignificance Is NOT Bliss! Some folks here do not care if we are second banana to the Los Angeles Chargers. I'm not wired that way.

"L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!" Frederick The Great (as quoted often by General George S. Patton).