LOS ANGELES — Is this really happening?
In the shadow of the Coliseum, where the Rams have not played a playoff game in 39 seasons, the most devoted of diehards, dressed in their throwback yellow and blues, can’t help but smile and wonder. A year ago, a playoff berth was no more than an impossible dream.
But that feels like an eternity ago now, as a surreal celebration is underway on the blacktop of Lot 2. Music is blaring. The smell of barbecue is in the air. The beer is flowing, selfies are being snapped, and the mood is electric. Strangers pass and toast red cups, flashing the same stunned look. How did we get here? They all seem to wonder.
The euphoria will wear off in the hours to come, as the Rams’ comeback efforts fell short against the Falcons, their playoff party ending after just one wild night. But even the wildest of optimists in Lot 2 will admit, long before the result is final, that they never expected to be here at all. Not only did the Rams return to the postseason, where the franchise hadn’t been since 2004, they hosted a playoff game in Southern California for the first time since Jan. 4, 1986.
That day, the Rams shut out the Cowboys, 20-0, in Anaheim. Three weeks later, Sean McVay, the wunderkind coach behind the Rams’ revival, was born.
Mark Millsap was in the Anaheim Stadium stands for that final playoff game in the Southland. He wore an Eric Dickerson jersey and watched as the Rams back tore through the Dallas defense for 248 yards. Eight years later, when the Rams moved to St. Louis, Millsap drew a red line through the middle of that jersey in a fit of rage.
He never imagined then that they might return. But 32 years later, Millsap stood on the blacktop in a hard hat outfitted with Rams horns, wearing the jersey of Dickerson’s heir apparent, Todd Gurley. As the party carries on around him, he turns to his son, Mark, who, like the Rams coach, wasn’t born the last time the Rams played a playoff game in Southern California. Now, though, father and son are together amid this euphoric sea of Rams jerseys, and Millsap can’t help but wonder if the decades of exile were all leading to this.
“I think it was meant to be,” Millsap says.“I was thinking about that today. If they would’ve never left, we wouldn’t have Sean McVay. Everything would be different. It all fell into place. It came full circle.”
Here, at this tailgate, there’s plenty of talk of destiny. It’s the only explanation that seems to justify how this turnaround came to be, but inside the Coliseum, the sentimentality fades into the ecstasy of the moment.
Since the Rams return, questions of whether the team might ever catch on in the city have raged on. But on this particular night, the buzz in the building is at a fevered pitch, as game time approaches. Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner who presided over the Rams return, walks the first row of bleachers obliging autographs and snapping selfies. Goodell’s presence at most NFL stadiums often elicits boos, but here, the sentiment in the building leaves no room for negativity.
One poster Goodell signs reads “Why not us? Why not now?” And until the final whistle blew and the team’s charmed season met its end, it certainly felt like this night belonged to the Rams. Before the game, as a Kendrick Lamar bass line quaked through the entire bowl, fans danced on bleachers across the stadium. Players bounced to the beat as they stretched. It wasn’t until the game started that their energy turned anxious and frenetic.
Rams legends, from Eric Dickerson to Torry Holt to Steven Jackson, lined the sidelines. Celebrities made appearances. Snoop Dogg performed at halftime, rapping in a suitable fog of smoke, splicing the Rams name into a medley of his greatest hits. It was one hell of a party, in a city that lives for such nights.
For the diehards who gathered hours earlier on Lot 2, it was a culmination.
“We stuck it out all of these years,” said Dave Stanley, one of the original members of the Rams’ fan group, the Melonheads. “We hung with the Rams. Now, it’s all worth it.”
For the rest of Los Angeles? Only time will tell whether the Rams have won them over. A long playoff run might’ve gone a long way towards making that a reality.
But for one night, the apathy and empty seats were a distant memory. The playoff drought was over. After 32 years, the NFL postseason returned, however briefly, to Los Angeles. And after a miraculous, one-year turnaround for the Rams, it seems clear that the city won’t have to wait much longer to experience it again.