Bonsignore: Rams must earn back L.A.'s love

Bonsignore: Rams must earn back L.A.'s love

By VINCENT BONSIGNORE / STAFF COLUMNIST

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – What, you thought this was going to be a perfectly seamless transition? The Rams were just going waltz into town after abandoning us all those years ago and just slide right back into our hearts and souls?

Sorry, that was never going to happen. It was inevitable there would be hiccups and bumps in the road. This was as awkward as awkward gets, them walking out on us 21 years like a dad kicking his family to the curb and us eventually writing them off for good.

They went on with their lives and so did we. The years passed. New relationships grew. Memories faded.

And that’s just how it was going to be.

Only for the Rams to show up at our doorstep out of the blue one day, holding a bouquet of flowers and wearing a sheepish look on their face.

“We're back!” they told us.

Of course we wanted to love them and embrace them and immediately accept them back into our lives and hearts.

But was that really realistic, when the passage of years meant so many of us moving on and a generation of kids growing up with no memory or allegiance to them and technology creating new ways to digest the NFL?

As we are learning, absolutely not.

Ticket sales are through the roof. Attendance has been astounding. All the result of an incredibly passionate and loyal Rams fan base that stayed true to them in spite of their bolt to St. Louis in 1995.

And that is a base the Rams will build on, albeit it will take some time.

On the other hand. television ratings have lagged – although lagging in L.A. still means incredibly more eyeballs than they got in St. Louis – with the exciting and popular Oakland Raiders drawing more viewers on the Sundays they are shown in L.A. and the national game on Sunday night often topping the Rams in the ratings.

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