Los Angeles Rams · History

The Los Angeles Rams are an American football franchise based in Los Angeles, founded in 1936 in Cleveland. They play in the NFC West and have used SoFi Stadium in Inglewood since 2020. The club has won four championships: the NFL titles of 1945 and 1951 and Super Bowls XXXIV and LVI. It is the only franchise to have won a title while based in three different cities.

Cleveland, 1936, and the 1945 Championship

Homer Marshman founded the club in 1936 as the Cleveland Rams, taking the name from the Fordham college team. It spent that first year in the second American Football League and joined the NFL in 1937, splitting its home games between Cleveland Municipal Stadium and the older League Park. Dan Reeves bought the franchise in 1941 and suspended operations for the 1943 season because of the Second World War. The first title came on December 16, 1945 at Municipal Stadium: 15-14 over Washington, with rookie quarterback Bob Waterfield, named league MVP that same year, and a decisive safety when a Sammy Baugh pass struck the goalpost from his own end zone.

The Move West and the Reintegration of Pro Football

Reeves moved the franchise to Los Angeles in 1946, a month after winning the championship. It was the first NFL team on the West Coast and played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum through 1979. Because the stadium was publicly owned, the commission required that the tenant not discriminate by race. In March 1946 the Rams signed Kenny Washington and then Woody Strode, the first Black players in the NFL since 1933. The Coliseum also allowed crowds unknown back east: in 1957 the Rams drew more than 100,000 to a single game there.

The Horns and the 1951 Title

In 1948 halfback Fred Gehrke hand-painted yellow horns on the team's blue helmets. It was the first helmet logo in pro football and it is still in use. Those Rams had the best offense in the league and two Hall of Fame quarterbacks splitting the job, Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin: on September 28, 1951 Van Brocklin threw for 554 yards against the New York Yanks, a single-game record that still stands. Elroy Hirsch, nicknamed Crazylegs, caught 17 touchdown passes that season. On December 23, 1951, at the Coliseum, the Rams beat the Cleveland Browns 24-17 on a 73-yard pass from Van Brocklin to Tom Fears. It was their third straight title game against Cleveland.

Ten Games for a Title

The club has played five pre-Super Bowl NFL Championship Games and five Super Bowls.

The Fearsome Foursome and Super Bowl XIV

In the 1960s the defensive line of Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Rosey Grier and Lamar Lundy became known as the Fearsome Foursome. Jones coined the term sack and was twice named Defensive Player of the Year. George Allen coached the team from 1966 to 1970 and Chuck Knox took over in 1973; the Rams won seven straight division titles from 1973 to 1979 without reaching the final. The payoff was Super Bowl XIV, on January 20, 1980 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, with Ray Malavasi coaching and Vince Ferragamo at quarterback. The Pittsburgh Steelers won 31-19. Jack Youngblood played that postseason with a broken leg.

Dickerson, Anaheim and the Move to St. Louis

The club moved to Anaheim Stadium in 1980 and stayed through 1994. Eric Dickerson, drafted in 1983, ran for 2,105 yards in 1984, still the NFL single-season record. He was dealt to Indianapolis in a three-team trade in October 1987. Jackie Slater, by contrast, spent twenty seasons on the offensive line, from 1976 to 1995. Georgia Frontiere, who had inherited the team in 1979 after the death of Carroll Rosenbloom, moved the franchise to St. Louis in 1995. It played first at Busch Memorial Stadium and then in the city's domed stadium, which opened that autumn.

The Greatest Show on Turf and Super Bowl XXXIV

In 1999 a preseason injury to Trent Green handed the job to Kurt Warner, who had been playing in the Arena Football League not long before and had stocked shelves at a supermarket. Warner threw for 4,353 yards and 41 touchdowns and was named league MVP. With Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, the offense run by Dick Vermeil and Mike Martz earned the nickname the Greatest Show on Turf and scored more than 500 points in three straight seasons. On January 30, 2000 the Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV 23-16 over the Tennessee Titans: Warner was MVP with 414 yards, Bruce scored on a 73-yard pass, and Mike Jones tackled Kevin Dyson at the one-yard line on the final play. On February 3, 2002 they lost Super Bowl XXXVI 20-17 to New England on an Adam Vinatieri field goal as time expired.

Thirteen Years Without a Winning Record

After the 2001 final the club fell into its worst spell. From 2004 it did not finish a season above .500 again until 2017. Jeff Fisher coached from 2012 to 2016 without a single winning year. The drafts still produced something: Steven Jackson in 2004 and, above all, Aaron Donald, taken 13th in 2014, a three-time Defensive Player of the Year who retired in March 2024. In 2016 the team traded up to the first overall pick to take Jared Goff.

Back to Los Angeles, McVay and Super Bowl LVI

Stan Kroenke took majority control in 2010, and on January 12, 2016 NFL owners approved the team's return to Los Angeles. The move ended up in court: the club and the league paid St. Louis 790 million dollars in November 2021. The Rams played at the Coliseum again through 2019 and opened SoFi Stadium in 2020, a roughly 70,000-seat venue costing close to five billion dollars and owned by Kroenke himself. In January 2017 they hired 30-year-old Sean McVay, the youngest head coach in the modern NFL. Under him came Super Bowl LIII, lost 13-3 to New England on February 3, 2019, and the Super Bowl LVI title: 23-20 over the Cincinnati Bengals on February 13, 2022 at SoFi Stadium, with Cooper Kupp named MVP. Before that season the club had traded Goff to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford and two first-round picks.

The Horns and the 49ers Rivalry

The Rams share a division with the San Francisco 49ers, the Seattle Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals. The San Francisco series has been played since 1950 and is the oldest in the NFC West; some home games in Los Angeles have drawn more visiting fans than local ones. The current chant, "Whose House? Rams House", dates from the return to the city. Retired numbers include Bob Waterfield's 7, Eric Dickerson's 29, Merlin Olsen's 74, Deacon Jones's 75, Jackie Slater's 78 and Jack Youngblood's 85. The Rams were also the second team to win a Super Bowl in their own stadium.