LOS ANGELES -- Kickoff was still more than three hours away, but traffic around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was clogged and congested for block upon block. Figueroa Street, Exposition and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards were overflowing with cars, with police trying to coordinate a smooth entrance to the stadium. Thousands were still already tailgating inside, guys were holding signs offering parking acro s Vermont Avenue for the bargain price of $80 -- telltale signals that the NFL was back. NFL preseason This game between the Los Angeles (again) and the had registered as a bonafide event, even by L.A. standards, as the were back in town -- ostensibly to stay this time -- and this grand old stadium hosted its first game since Dec. 24, 1994. It was https://www.saintsreason.com/taysom-hill-t-shirts the place to be and be seen -- even with Adele performing another of her eight-straight sold-out concerts at Staples Center mere miles away and with the Dodgers in the heart of a pennant race. Eventually, the 89,140 fans poured in here (some late arriving, sure) which the Rams were pointing out as an NFL record for a preseason game in the States hours before it actually began. The Rams rallied for a 28-24 win on this gorgeous beach evening (85 degrees with a nice breeze), with their deep reserves overcoming a 17-point deficit in the second half. "It was great, it was great" said Rams coach Jeff Fisher, a SoCal guy who played in this stadium for USC. "Anytime you get close to the Coliseum it's hard to get in, because there are so many people. But it was fun. It was great. ... We're glad to be back." The fight for relevance and resonance and succe s -- in the standings and at the box office -- is on ... again, with the Rams seeking a connection with both the bevy of entertainment stars in the area, and especially with the hoi polloi, thousands of whom were ama sed all around this cavernous stadium from the morning hours on. Of course, the rub is, the novelty always wears off and this is an incredibly fickle NFL market and this team may have to win and win soon if it wants to capitalize on this initial shot of adrenaline. For all of the many shots on the scoreboard before kickoff of various models on the sidelines dancing and preening for the camera and for the celebrity cache on hand, it's going to take the Rams capturing a fan base and mollifying their corporate sponsors and suite holders to really make a go of it here. (Lest we forget https://www.saintsreason.com/bradley-roby-jerseys the or could still be joining them here.) And, well, allowing receiver to return the opening kickoff 101 yards for a score (the first of many Rams special teams failures) -- with a cacophony of Dallas fans wailing all the while -- probably wasn't the most auspicious way to begin this latest phase of pro football in Los Angeles after a 22-year absence. Of course, it was no coincidence that Jerry Jones' team served as the opponent for this momentous event, as he has long looked for a share of the market by holding his training camps in Oxnard, California, he was the primary power broker in getting the other owners to approve Stan Kroenke's plan to move here from St. Louis and eventually build a football palace in Inglewood, and you couldn't mi s the Cowboys' ma sive trailer truck parked outside the Coliseum, serving as a mobile team https://www.saintsreason.com/p-j-williams-jerseys store. One thing Jerrah always does is follow the money, and make no mistake, that's what this latest dalliance with L.A. is all about. So, let us commence with some of the "firsts" and get them out of the way. They played by Randy Newman for the first time on the Coliseum loudspeakers about 75 minutes before kickoff (they played a snippet of the chorus of the theme of about 500 times, inter-splicing it between other songs for three hours or so before game-time). Whitehead, as you already know, scored the first touchdown back here and explosive back/return man scored first for the Rams, a 14-yard scamper that punctuated a drive he sustained. And in the end, Fisher was addre sing his locker room following a wild comeback win trying to keep them from getting too high. "I had to remind them it was a preseason game," Fisher said of his partying locker room. "It was as if we had just clinched the playoffs as far as they were concerned. And that's always fun." This being a preseason game -- even one with all of this pomp and circumstance and, I suppose, history -- the primary context of the affair was still more about who did not play than it was about who did. Yes, the Rams are trying to raise their national profile ( and all) and are desperate to get their young core some exposure and profile in this over-saturated L.A. media/marketing and entertainment landscape. , the best candidate for on this roster, for instance, has joked that he only gets noticed, when he does get noticed, as the guy from a local hamburger ad. But it can't be at the expense of over-exposure to injury, and he was among those who did not play. The Cowboys, predictably, sat star quarterback after an injury-marred 2015, as well as veteran tight end and stud left tackle , to name just a few. And the Rams still had to be smart about how much they played their starters, too. Journeyman started the game under center, though one can't imagine he'll play much football once these games actually start to count in the standings. And the individual most in the limelight Saturday night -- even more than Gurley -- was first-round pick , whom this franchise mortgaged a good bit of its future to move https://www.saintsreason.com/deonte-harris-jerseys up and select despite a somewhat middling college career. The early years of this franchise -- particularly these three seasons before Kroenke completes construction on his state-of-the-art football Taj Mahal in Inglewood -- will be defined by the succe s of that trade, or lack thereof, and Goff's development. For a franchise that has lacked anything close to stable and competent quarterback play for a decade (since the emergence of Marc Bulger), and which hasn't finished above .500 since 2003, much is riding on Goff's arm. His importance cannot be overstated, and while he played in this monstrous stadium in college at Cal, the stakes are markedly higher for him and his bo ses, now. Had Goff been able to come close to the poise and ability of Cowboys rookie (a fourth-round pick), then there would have been considerably more postgame buzz about this contest. Prescott (10 of 12 for 139 yards, two touchdowns and a near-perfect rating of 154.5) displayed veteran savvy and splayed the ball around the field. He made two pretty back-shoulder throws to early on -- one for a big gain and another https://www.saintsreason.com/michael-thomas-jerseys for a highlight-reel touchdown; it was the kind of throw Goff failed repeatedly to make to receiver with no defenders around from the opening episode of and indicative of the many strides he must make. Prescott was pristine, displaying perfect form and placement on a beautiful 32-yard lob that led right into the end zone (Prescott was the leading man of this exhibition). "He did a really good job of
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