History will be made, then football will be played when Rams face Cowboys in Coliseum

History will be made, then football will be played when Rams face Cowboys in Coliseum

By VINCENT BONSIGNORE / STAFF COLUMNIST

[www.ocregister.com]

It’s not often the executive of an NFL team starts thinking about a preseason game three months before kickoff – let alone talks it up in historical terms.

But when Dallas Cowboys CEO Stephen Jones pondered the Cowboys’ preseason opener against the Rams on Saturday at the Coliseum, he did so with a bit of awe.

“I’m not sure you’d be far off calling it the biggest preseason game in the history of the NFL,” Jones said, standing in the lobby of the Ballantyne Hotel in Charlotte last May. “I can’t think of a bigger preseason game, ever.”

Jones has a point.

A crowd of 80,000 to 90,000 is expected to cram into the Coliseum to watch the Rams’ first home game at the 93-year-old stadium since 1979, and their first home game back in Southern California in 21 years.

It will be raucous. It will be electric. And it will be emotional.

And based on some of my Twitter DM’s the last few days, you might even see grown men crying when the Rams emerge from the iconic Coliseum tunnel and take the field at a stadium they called home from 1946-79.

It only seems appropriate the Cowboys will share the Coliseum turf on the day of the Rams’ poignant homecoming.

Long-time Angelenos remember epic battles back in the day in which quintessential NFL names such as Roger Staubach and Bob Lilly and Tony Dorsett locked horns with Roman Gabriel and Merlin Olsen and Jack Youngblood – and so any others – on Sunday afternoons in downtown L.A.

A newer generation remembers the critical role Jones and his father Jerry – the colorful owner of the Cowboys – played in paving the freeway the Rams eventually rode home from St. Louis.

Jerry Jones, as much as anyone else, helped convince fellow NFL owners that the NFL needed to return to Los Angeles, and that sending the Rams home to play in the $2.6 billion stadium owner Stan Kroenke is building in Inglewood was the right call over the Raiders and Chargers joint stadium bid in Carson.

“There isn’t but one place like Los Angeles and Inglewood,” Jerry Jones said recently. “And so, the idea that the venue, that we can have the opportunity for that venue to match the iconic feeling that our league should feel in Los Angeles, that carried the day.

“And of course the guy that could do it, the guy that did do it and lead the way, was Stan Kroenke.”

Only fitting, then, that history and influence will converge the way it will Saturday at the Coliseum when the Rams and Cowboys officially put the NFL back on the L.A. map.

But soon nostalgia will give way to competitiveness.

Jones and Kroenke were allies during the contentious process of sorting out the NFL’s return to Los Angeles.

Come kickoff on Saturday, they’ll retreat to their private boxes and it’ll be all football.

“Let me tell you, the next time we play, he knows and I know we want to win,” Jerry Jones promised. “That’s what we’re here for.”

The Rams fully expect to get caught up in the moment, if only for a moment of two.

It will be back to work soon after, as they continue the process of setting their roster, settling some position battles and fine tuning before their regular-season opener against the 49ers on Sept. 12.

The game plan – such as it is – will be acutely vanilla and basic. But the expectations are high relative to precision.

“We’re looking for execution and obviously keep the penalties down,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “I just want to see them execute, you’d like to see execution throughout the game. Your starters, in a perfect world, your defense goes out and goes three-and-out, they come off the field and the offense goes down and gets points. It doesn’t always happen, but you have to keep in mind and be objective about the fact that we’re not doing an awful lot.”

There are position battles to assess – the Rams have starter openings at safety and cornerback after the free agent departures of Rodney McLeod and Janoris Jenkins, and the offensive line puzzle is still being sorted out.

Meanwhile, newcomer Tyler Higbee hopes to state his case for a significant role at tight end and Michael Thomas, Pharoh Cooper and Nelson Spruce are angling for playing time at wide receiver.

But all of that takes a secondary role to the quarterback battle, where current starter Case Keenum is trying to fight off rookie Jared Goff for the job.

Goff, the top pick in last April’s draft, will eventually get the nod. But Keenum won’t just hand him the position.

If normal preseason protocol unfolds Saturday, Keenum will play a series or two before giving way to Goff. How long Goff plays remains to be seen, but the Rams need to get a handle at quarterback as soon as possible, so you imagine they’ll give Goff an ample look under game conditions.

Goff is ready to make the step from the practice field to an actual game.

“I feel good, I feel ready,” Goff said. “Obviously, my first NFL game. I’m going to try and go out there and treat it like every other game I’ve ever played in my life, and have fun, execute, enjoy my time, and do the best I can.”

The back drop will be emotional and electric. It’s a historic occasion to be sure.

But eventually it will be back to business.