https://twitter.com/MattSebek/status/762372809880330240
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” — George Orwell, 1984
Apparently for the NFL, they’ve never had a team in St.Louis. At least, that’s what they’d want you to think by cutting out Orlando Pace’s shoutout to his old team during his Hall of Fame induction speech.
The NFL posted Pace’s Hall of Fame induction speech with the St. Louis part cut out, and then later, marked it private on YouTube. It looks like it’s back up now, but still, come on, NFL.
This is, quite simply, ridiculous. Behind closed doors, among owners, sure, you can do what you want. Move teams around, scam cities of tax money, whatever. But you can’t ignore the fact that there was a football team in St. Louis for twenty years!!!
The NFL asks a lot of players. It asks them to forgo their health, their choice of jobs out of college (by virtue of the draft) and it asks them to risk everything for a career that for most players will not reach four years. Orlando Pace beat the odds as the first overall pick of the 1997 draft for the St. Louis Rams, blocking for Kurt Warner on their way to a Super Bowl win in 1999. He played for 13 years, at a high enough level to get picked for the Hall of Fame, but even then, even at the very end, the NFL won’t let him say whatever he wants to say.
Give it up, Goodell. There was a team in St. Louis. They won a Super Bowl. Just because their owner ran them into the trash the last ten years doesn’t mean they’re not worth remembering.
