Hail Mary, incomplete.
Credit the U.S. Supreme Court for the pass breakup.
The high court on Monday swatted down the latest desperate heave from Team Kroenke.
Rams owner Stan Kroenke, his team, the NFL at large and the 31 other NFL teams and their owners _ that's Team Kroenke _ had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider forcing Team STL's relocation lawsuit toward closed-door arbitration.
The U.S. Supreme Court said it had better things to do.
Somebody send the justices some Imo's.
For those keeping track, this is another win for Team STL, which is made up of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, St. Louis and St. Louis County.
Team STL's little victories have continued to pile up since its lawyers filed a 52-page suit in St. Louis Circuit Court in April 2017 that seeks damages and restitution of profits stemming from the NFL's blatant violations of its own relocation process during the Rams' move from St. Louis to Los Angeles, which took place in 2016.
Breach of contract. Unjust enrichment. Fraudulent misrepresentation. Tortious interference with business expectancy.
Those are the counts.
Heavy stuff that made critics scoff at the time.
"There is no legitimate basis for this litigation," NFL vice president Brian McCarthy told the Post-Dispatch then. "While we understand the disappointment of the St. Louis fans and the community, we worked diligently with local and state officials in a process that was honest and fair at all times."
No one's scoffing now.
Monday's news meant another step toward a trial in front of a St. Louis Circuit Court, one that could truly expose the sham that was the relocation rip-job, one that could forever alter how the NFL cartel handles its shady business _ or if nothing else, one that could win the region a lot of money, perhaps enough to make up for the amount that was lost playing a rigged game. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more.
We'll see.
The NFL's relocation guidelines were established in 1984 to avoid antitrust liability. The rules tell teams they must work diligently and in good faith to remain in their current communities. A team can't leave without checking certain boxes, the rules say.
Those who have paid attention know the relocation rip-job included none of those components. The only thing Kroenke and Rams executive Kevin Demoff worked on diligently was saying the team had no interest in leaving while they made plans to do just that, using a regrettable loophole in a lease as the escape hatch.
St. Louis spent $16 million on a plan for a riverfront stadium that never was seriously considered, especially not after Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones started really greasing wheels on Kroenke's behalf. No one representing The Shield did anything to stop it. Many representing The Shield did many things to help make it happen.
It could catch up to them, and I'm not talking about the billion-dollar cost overruns at Kroenke's new and still unfinished stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
The U.S. Supreme said arbitration no longer is an option. Period.
Arbitration could have given Kroenke home-field advantage. It could have kept certain secrets from getting out. It could have been influenced by Kroenke, who tends to spend a lot of money on arbitration during his many legal fights. Arbitration is Team Kroenke's second-favorite play, the one right behind delay.
Now the pursuit of holding the NFL accountable for its relocation wrongdoing has one less exit ramp to veer off on before this fight reaches prime time. Time will tell if it gets there, all the way to a must-see event that puts the NFL's best truth-evaders under oath before a jury as they try to explain how relocation guidelines mean everything one day, and nothing the next.
A settlement could stop everything, of course, though there was no reason Monday to believe one is in the works.
Money always talks. The daydream of negotiating for a new team excites some. Perhaps the most compelling outcome, though, would be the one that will occur if no settlement arrives, one that bets everything on a trial, one that plays by rules that can't be made up as the game goes along.
The critics underestimate Team STL.
No worries.
It keeps winning.
Team Kroenke's request to put discovery on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court made Monday's decision was denied.
Team Kroenke's request to block Team STL from requesting and receiving a mountain of phone records from NFL owners dating back years was denied.
Team Kroenke's relentless push for arbitration was ... denied.
Meanwhile, Team STL's lawyers from Blitz, Bardgett and Deutsch continue to chip away without comment, working on contingency.
They were due to receive another round of written discovery from the Rams in late February.
Depositions of non-expert witnesses and the disclosing of expert witnesses must occur within the next year.
A jury trial is set to begin October 25, 2021.
This just in.
The doors won't be closed.
