NFL's arrogance on display once again with Hall of Fame manipulation

There are no boundary markers for the NFL when it comes to arrogance. We allow the league and its owners to operate in this manner, of course, with endless, fawning coverage in all forms of media, and with a sporting public that reserves as much emotion for the NFL as all other pro sports combined.

That doesn't the change the fact that Commissioner Roger Goodell, his bobos and the owners are capable of anything when it comes to avarice and deceit.

Being a greed-driven weasel is a requirement to be an NFL owner in 2016.

There's no greater example of that than Stan Kroenke, a lout of ridiculous wealth, who snubbed St. Louis' efforts to reach a stadium deal, and then moved the Rams to Los Angeles to the great applause of his fellow ravagers of cities, including our own Zygmunt Wilf.

The dome that first lured the Rams to St. Louis opened in November 1995 (the Rams played three months in the previous Busch Stadium), and yet Kroenke was declaring it antiquated well before its 20^th birthday.

St. Louis was willing to find a solution, but all Kroenke and Jerry Jones and Wilf and the rest of the NFL robber barons could see were the 100s of millions to be made and shared with a return to Los Angeles.

The NFL's earlier presence in St. Louis was with the Cardinals from 1960 to 1987, a franchise that was largely mismanaged by the bumbling Bill Bidwill.

Kroenke's successful plot to escape for the Land of Milk, Honey and Billions left the lingering football loyalists in St. Louis only with the memories of that brief glory with Kurt Warner at the trigger to hold onto.

And the pathetic cowards that run the NFL didn't even want St. Louis to have those.

Leaving town and a 20-year-old, public-paid stadium in its wake wasn't'enough for the NFL.

It wanted to punish St. Louis, to expunge it as much as possible.

What's the reason for the NFL's St. Louis hate? Maybe it's because St. Louis is the best baseball city in America, and in Goodell World and Jerry Jones World, it's un-American for a city to love a baseball team more than a football team.

The induction ceremony was held last Saturday for the eight-member class. Brett Favre set a record with a 37- minute, 18-second speech. The official video on the NFL's YouTube page ran the entire 37:18.

The speeches of coach Tony Dungy (17:31), owner Eddie DeBartolo (27:14), Kevin Greene (19:03) and Marvin Harrison (11:25) also appeared in full with the official NFL videos.

Orlando Pace?

His speech lasted 16 minutes, 49 seconds. The original video of his speech that was posted by the NFL was trimmed to 8 minutes, 2 seconds.

Pace played 13 seasons in the NFL and the first 12 were in St. Louis. He won that Super Bowl with the Rams after the 1999 season. And he was an important reason the Rams did so, taking care of his man Warner with wonderful protection on the left side.

"To the St. Louis Rams fans, I'm so proud to say we brought that city a championship. Thank you for the support you gave us during that run. No one can ever take that away from you. Thank you.''

There were more accolades for St. Louis and Georgia Frontiere, the owner who moved the Rams from Anaheim in 1995 to the play in what first was called the TWA Dome in downtown St. Louis.

The St. Louis tribute and other mentions were gone from the NFL's YouTube video, until the editing was noticed and became a large issue.

The NFL claimed the missing minutes of Pace's speech – the only one of six speeches edited – was a "technical error.'' After being called on it, the NFL had to re-post the Pace video with the full 16:49 version.

Were the NFL manipulators contrite? Nah, they were just caught.

One more thing: Among those missing at Pace's induction on Saturday in Canton was Kroenke, a part owner of the Rams during Pace's entire time in St. Louis.