I also think that SK had a lot of (misplaced) faith in Fisher for the 2016 season. BUT, all of this information could have and should have been in SK's mind BEFORE they even played a down in LA. Knowing that if Jeff Fisher delivers a losing season, he will never be able to hawk what Fisher's selling to LA for even one more year of that 2 year contract. PSLs were surely on his mind from the moment the move was made final (and surely before!). PSL didn't suddenly became relevant when the Rams got spanked yet again at home in week 13 when the Rams were already essentially eliminated from contention anyway.
The man who "forced Kroenke's hand" is his own Head Coach Jeff Fisher. It's no coincidence that 9 losses dropped the hammer. My hypothesis is that from the get-go SK knew that a losing Rams team wasn't going to fly in LA, and was already prepared to cut ties with Fisher the very next day that that 9-loss marker was reached.
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Zooey
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ArizonaRamFan
I suspect it was more like "If Jeff Fisher delivers another losing season, he's gone." In the interview with KD, they talked about the Fisher extension and why they were firing him now, his explanation was that they wanted to avoid a "lame duck year" in their first season of the Big Return Home, and that makes sense to me.
I'd speculate that the decision to fire Fisher after 9 losses was all but made before the first game was even played in LA, and the brutal manner of those recent losses only solidified that decision. SK appears to me to be a very deliberate man, not one to "cave under pressure of media". The way he left them out in the cold in STL for years tells me that he doesn't really seem to care what they think.
No, he doesn't care what the media and fans think under normal circumstances, but he does care about selling PSLs for the new stadium, and those go on sale in January, I believe. He was leaving St. Louis anyway, and the apathy/anger of media/fans there only served his larger goal. That isn't the case now.
He needs the cash flow to finance construction. And if LA is disenchanted, PSL sales will be slower and smaller in total.
Imagine if the Rams had made the playoffs this year.
He would be able to sell PSLs out in a couple of weeks. So the perception of the Rams is tightly bound up with that revenue source that he wants to tap into after this season. I think 42-0 at home in front of a half empty stadium is not how one goes about selling PSLs. I mean...PSL buyers are buying hope, and the only way to provide that is to offer a new promise, a new source of hope.
I think the torches and pitchforks really forced his hand. It no longer came down to a question of faith in Fisher. His customers told him loudly that THEY have no faith, and he had to put a new paint job on the team. This isn't what he planned to do, but the Rams cratered this year, and the fans demanded it.
