Have the Rams finally solved the NFL riddle that is LA?

The Los Angeles Rams are delivering a winning product in the city the NFL had been desperate to be relevant in.

When the Los Angeles Rams limped to a 4-12 finish in 2016, their first season back in LA, the dumpster fire meme seemed an appropriate summation to the promise of a 3-1 start. The Rams were a mess, and just as quick as LA had their team back, their irrelevance looked assured, at least for awhile.

When the season wrapped with a loss that year to NFC West rival Arizona, a 44-6 drubbing at the LA Coliseum, the sigh of relief that the misery had ended was palpable.

The Rams were on the verge of becoming an afterthought, quickly.

They looked to be a second banana. The least interesting after a Saturday of USC Trojans or UCLA Bruins football. Well below the interest level of a rebuilding Lakers team, and certainly nowhere near as popular or credible as the Dodgers.

The NFL team in Los Angeles had flopped and flopped badly. And just as Jeff Fisher has been appropriately jettisoned, it seemed only a matter of time before General Manager Les Snead would meet a similar fate.

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Fast forward. Snead is still employed, and the Rams may enter the 2018 season as the odds-on favorite to not just get to, but win a Super Bowl.

Trust that no one is happier than the NFL, who had long desired and needed a presence on the West Coast that was NOT Seattle or San Francisco.

The key to the West has always been, and always will be Los Angeles. And don’t forget the many naysayers in the national media who scoffed at the NFL working in LA, regardless of the history that was the Rams franchise there.

The leagues desire to have a footprint out West is no secret. The success of the Seahawks and not too long ago with the 49ers was nice. It was quaint. But Los Angeles was always the prize. It’s also to be the crown jewel facility likely to house the NFL Combine, an NFL Draft, AND a Super Bowl.

Perhaps often.

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It’s also the city now playing host to the most exciting team in all the league,

Be it a stroke of genius, or the dumbest of luck, Snead has ushered in an era of football the NFL was absolutely desperate for in the city the most desperately desired.

Now that team is winning.

Problem solved.