Is the NFL faced with a 'hostile bench' in St. Louis relocation suit?
Damning phone calls, disclosure of owners financial records and a looming trial date. When a Missouri judge on Monday ordered five NFL owners and commissioner Roger Goodell to turn over their finances in order to assess potential damages in a lawsuit from a consortium of St. Louis-area municipal outlets against the NFL over the relocation of the Rams to Los Angeles in early 2016, it came as a shock. The lawsuit has been plodding along for four years.In that time, the NFL has done its darndest to keep its records sealed. But Mondays hearing appeared to show the NFL was contemplating moving the Rams out of St. Louis as early as 2013, even as the league would encourage the city to spend millions of dollars in the ensuing years developing an ultimately rejected stadium proposal.