Randy Newman’s 1983 song “I Love L.A.” extols all the virtues of the city of Los Angeles. The video for the song shows various segments of the Los Angeles community in front of famous spots in town, echoing the refrain of, “We love it!”
If Newman ever releases a 2016 reboot of the video, don’t be surprised if the Seattle Seahawks are one of those groups, with players decked out in Seahawks blue enthusiastically shouting “We love it!” in front of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Not so much because it’s L.A., but because it’s not St. Louis.
The NFL returned to Los Angeles this season, with the Rams moving back to the city after leaving for St. Louis following the 1994 season. And the only ones who may be happier than the L.A. area football fans who have been waiting more than two decades for the NFL to come back are the Seahawks, who have just two sentiments with regards to St. Louis:
Goodbye, and good riddance.
That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate reasons for the Seahawks to celebrate the Rams being in Los Angeles. Seattle coach Pete Carroll has deep ties to the area stemming from his highly successful stint as the coach at USC from 2000-09, when he won two NCAA championships and became L.A. royalty. Several star players, including cornerback Richard Sherman and linebacker Bobby Wagner, hail from the L.A. area and will now be able to play in front of family and friends.
But Seattle’s joy has more to do with getting St. Louis off the itinerary, rather than adding L.A. to it.
Since moving into the NFC West in 2002, St. Louis has in many ways been the scourge of Seattle’s existence.
It begins with the geography. In that quirky way professional sports leagues work in this country, St. Louis is deemed to be in the “West.” That meant every year the Seahawks had to travel 2,000 miles and cross two time zones in order to play a division game, only one more extra-long road trip teams in other divisions in the NFC didn’t have to make. The Rams being in L.A. cuts the flight time in half, and it keeps the game in the Pacific time zone. That means less travel wear on the bodies, as well as being able to maintain a normal day-of-game schedule.
Then there’s the stadium. OK, the 93-year-old L.A. Coliseum, with a visitor’s locker room that can fit a Pee Wee team comfortably but not an NFL one, may not be a state-of-the-art facility. But the new stadium in Inglewood, which is scheduled to be ready for the 2019 season, will be. And either location will be a far cry from the always-half-empty Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, a stadium that had all the atmosphere of an 8 a.m. freshman English lecture at Kane Hall on the campus of the University of Washington.
“I will not miss playing in the dome,” was Wagner’s immediate and definitive answer when asked if he would miss St. Louis.
Receiver Jermaine Kearse concurred: “To stay on the west coast is pretty cool. Usually we would make a two-day trip of St. Louis, and for some reason the 10 o’clock (PDT) game, I don’t know what it is about them.”
Indeed, whatever it was about St. Louis it was reflected in the standings. While things like airplane flights and stadium noise are cosmetic, the final score is what really matters, and that’s where St. Louis was truly a problem for the Seahawks.
If there’s an aberration in Seattle’s record since moving into the NFC West, it’s the team’s results in St. Louis. Since 2002 the Seahawks have dominated the Rams at home, going 12-2. That comes as no surprise, considering the Rams had only one winning season in those 14 campaigns and compiled a hideous overall record of 83-140-1. Yet in games played in St. Louis the Seahawks were a tame 7-7.
The numbers are even worse since Carroll became coach in 2010. Under Carroll the Seahawks are 5-1 against the Rams at home, but just 2-4 at the Edward Jones Dome. Seattle lost a grand total of 18 games during the regular season the past four seasons as the Seahawks emerged as an NFC powerhouse. Three of those losses came at St. Louis.
Could it just be a case of typical home-field advantage against a divisional foe? It isn’t. Against the other two NFC West foes — the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals — the Seahawks have a nearly identical record at home (5-7) as they do on the road (4-7-1) the past six seasons.
Sunday is the NFL’s first game in Los Angeles in 22 years. When the Seahawks take the field, the warm Southern California sunshine gleaming off their helmets, they’ll no doubt be fired up, not just because it’s gameday, but also because of the 90,000-plus fans who will be jeering their every move.
But a small piece of their excitement won’t have anything to do with the environment they’re playing in. It’ll be because of the environment they’ve left behind.
For more on the Seattle sports scene, check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at www.heraldnet.com/tag/seattle-sidelines, or follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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