Occasionally we are reminded that our existence clings fragilely to a huge and violent planet controlled by massive forces that toil invisibly beneath its own surface, or in the currents of the far away sky. When something breaks in the balance of these forces, we -- either you, me, or some copy of you and me embodied in people we cannot know halfway around the world -- are caught in the middle, and made to suffer. Those in Japan are suffering now, and our thoughts naturally gravitate to them.

When the earth heaves and yaws and breaks open, when pure red molten evil erupts, when the air we breathe is suddenly filled with irresistable howling fury, when walls of water rise up to scrub away our matchstick existence, that's when the conceit of our faith disappears.

Our faith in a kind and benevolent god -- a god in whose image we ourselves are made, whose purest impulses of love and power and creation and sublimation are somehow genetically coded (however imperfectly) into each of us -- gets thrown into crisis. When the massive earth itself overturns us, we cannot comprehend. We cannot but see a hand at work, but we wail against our own faith in the guiding power behind that hand.

The spiritual crisis that these disasters provoke boils down to four words: "Who would choose this?"

And yet we do choose it, all too often, in the worlds of our making. We build up mighty empires and then tear them down with our own hands. We take the misery of one community and use it as justification to destroy another. We wage continent-sized wars over the intangible, unseeable color of belief.

We are seeing this drama play out again on an embarrassingly small stage in these NFL negotiations. Even now those lucky and immeasurably wealthy fools who have enriched themselves from the most popular game in the land stand only hours away from wreaking their own personal havoc upon it. The deeply felt forces boil within these men, threatening to turn over the ground upon which the game stands, to scatter it to pieces. The relative scale of this destruction -- huge in the balance of the sporting world, miniscule in the balance of our survival -- is barely felt by those whose hands are upon it. The irony is entirely lost in the mad instinct to break a balance, to take control at whatever cost.

And our faith in the game, our conceit that it somehow matters, is shaken by the uncomprehendable stupidity of the act of destruction. Even if it wasn't immediately dwarfed by catastrophes much larger in scale.

But something curious happens once the crisis has passed, once the dead are dead, the broken is broken, and the rest of us live. More often than not, that faith comes back, and with it the urge to build, to create, to save. Not just to put back what was, but to somehow make it better than before. It might be folly, but it is a human instinct.

There may be some who leave Japan in the wake of this earthquake, but there will be many, many others who stay, whose grip on their life there, whose belief that it matters, could not be shaken free. 

And regardless of what happens behind closed doors today when the opposing tectonic forces of millionaires and billionaires meet, what may happen in courtrooms and press conferences and war rooms in the coming weeks and months, it will be hard to scatter this silly conceited love of football that I hold.

It might sound ridiculously small in the scale of today's events, but it will take more than this invented labor "crisis," in other words, to stop me from believing in my Rams.

Lincoln cited Matthew 12:25 when decrying the division of the union in 1858:

"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand."

Memo to the NFL owners: there's a moral to this story.

The latest mantra to emerge from the NFL Players Association in their extended collective bargaining talks with owners has been clear: "Open the books." In other words, justify your claims of hardship, justify why you need an 18-game season, why you need an extra billion dollars in revenue, why you're willing to shut down the most successful sport in the country.

Or, to paraphrase Rod Tidwell: "Show us the money."

It's a bold piece of rhetoric, one that the players have been asking for for several years, dating back to a 2009 request for full financial info. It's also one that the owners' group has steadfastly refused to even consider. But now, as the clock ticks on, cracks appear to be forming in the foundation of their resolve, says CBS Sports' Mike Freeman.

It's a possibility that several of us were tossing about yesterday, and VanRam from Turf Show Times summarized the situation quite succinctly: "Players are a common enemy for owners now, but real strife could be there between the 2 classes of owners."

Those two classes are the same two classes that are constantly pitted against each other, in times of conflict or tenuous truce: the haves and the have-nots. Or in the NFL's case, the large-market versus the small-market owners.

Mel Kiper on the Rams' draft options: "You could get with this, or you could get with that."

Mel Kiper released his latest mock draft this week, throwing DT Corey Liuget to the Rams at #14. A debatable value pick but definitely fills a need. Begin mild debate over Liuget here over a Stephen Paea or Marvin Austin later in the draft. But the juicy part is what happened next...

In a two hour conference call, Kiper discussed the mock and its potential ramifications in detail. In that discussion were some very interesting insights on the Rams, and a certain wide receiver whose initials are "J.J.". Nick Waggoner at the Rams' official team blog captured some very interesting insights:

Q: [Would it be worthwhile to trade up for someone like Jones?]

A: “Jones would be worth trading up from 14 maybe to 10 or 9. If you are sitting there and Washington doesn’t want to go with a receiver though I think they could. It may be tough. It may be difficult to find somebody and you may have to get ahead of 10 or 11. I could see Washington looking at Jones. I could see Houston looking at Jones before the St. Louis Rams are up.

Now if he falls to St. Louis [at #14], I think you’ve got to take him. I’d like to see him have a little more consistency catching the football, he had some drops, the durability issue is real. He’s had a variety of injuries. Now it’s the foot. So he has to stay healthy over the long haul in the NFL. But hey, they drafted (Sam) Bradford and he didn’t have any injury issues after being hurt at Oklahoma. Maybe Jones had injury issues at Alabama, comes in and goes to the Rams and they have the magic touch and the guys that had troubles in college don’t get hurt in the NFL.

"But is he talented enough? His combine was unbelievable."

He’s a big, physical, hard nosed, great blocker that will help that running game and a guy that I really thought stepped it up this year as a main pass catching option for Alabama. He’s certainly worthy of being 14, he’s worthy of being as high as 8, 9 if you have to go up to get him. Right now he is No. 13 (on my board) so he’s right ahead of where they are picking. He’s worthy of being that guy.

The notion of trading up is even more topical when you look at the Rams' options for their third-round pick -- the draft ammunition that would most likely be spent in the process of moving up.

Are the Rams now at a point in their progress where they can move beyond stockpiling players to fill need, and have the luxury of picking top-tier talent at a skill position? I for one think so.

How big is the void left by OJ Atogwe, and could Clemson safety DeAndre McDaniel fill it?

The third round of the draft has been a mixed bag for the Rams so far under Devaney. He has yet to move aggressively up or down, into or out of the round, and their value board seems to settle on slightly flawed players that project to fill a need, more or less.

• 2008: G - John Greco. Greco is a straight-line blocking force who has seemingly matured into the discussion for the starting guard spot, but for whatever reason struggles to stay on the field. Potentially a very nice value pick, but only if he wins that job.

• 2009: CB - Bradley Fletcher. Fletcher lost most of his rookie season to the Turf Monster, but has become a starter at cornerback in his second season. A definite win.

• 2010: CB - Jerome Murphy. Last year saw the Rams reach for cornerback again, choosing the physical safety/CB crossover Jerome Murphy. But outside of a handful of special teams hits, Murph wasn't able to make a big splash in his rookie season, struggling in coverage when he played, riding the pine when he didn't. The jury is out, but the Rams may have to change their plan on Murphy if he's going to realize the draft value of a top-100 pick.

And if 2011 plays out the way it does in the latest mock draft by Erik Galko of Optimum Scouting, the Rams could dip into the defensive backfield ranks for the third year in a row -- a move seemingly necessary after we lost the Atogwe sweepstakes.

14. St. Louis Rams - Robert Quinn, DE, North Carolina
Ideally they'd like Julio Jones for develop with Sam Bradford as a franchise #1 receiver. However, based on his workout, there seems to be no way that will happen now for the Rams. Still, they can fill another need by adding a dominant pass rusher for this Steve Spagnuolo that values attacking the quarterback with multiple rushers. Quinn is a good value here and can be a dynamic 4-3 rusher in the mold of Justin Tuck and Julius Peppers with time.

47. St. Louis Rams - Titus Young, WR, Boise State
-Missed out on a receiver in the 1st, Young is a deep threat that could give Josh McDaniels weapons

78. St. Louis Rams - DeAndre McDaniel, S, Clemson
-Atogwe is gone, and though it's not a great time to find his replacement, McDaniel has the talent

DeAndre McDaniel didn't wow at the NFL Combine, but in a weak safety class still projects as top-3 or top-5 at the position. His consensus scouting report casts him as an aggressive and productive tackler, something you'd expect from a converted linebacker, and he flashes a little bit of ball skills as well. However, he has a huge character blemish on his record stemming from an ugly aggravated assault and battery arrest in 2008. Obviously Spagnuolo's Four Pillars exam would be applied sternly to the player before a pick was made.

Would this pick be a good move or an opportunity missed? That depends on how you think about the value of the pick, and the talent already on the Rams roster.

CL7TWO
IMPORTANT all my tweeps-this relationship has been fabulous.lets keep it going... pls follow my new twitter @CL9ONE THANK YOU 4 UR PATIENCE

CL9ONE
to answer yalls questions in regard to a number change, yes i am changing my number. for those of you with my old jersey, i appreciate that

Rams fans in 2011 seeing a blur coming off left end and plowing through the quarterback, wearing #91, might think they were watching a flashback to the glory days of Leonard Little. Or a photo negative. Nope. It's the new-look Chris Long, wearing a throwback to his college glory days.

Players change numbers all the time and it isn't usually newsworthy. For example, Laurent Robinson wore 11 when he first arrived with the Rams, but took over 19 after Derek Stanley was cut in that season's training camp. The change made the tiniest of ripples, but confirmed that Stanley wasn't coming back.

It's a different story when the player is one of the top-five jersey sellers for a team. Fans begin to attach a real significance to the digits, once they're worn on the backs of fellow fans. (I couldn't get an exact quote from an NFL Shop representative, but it's safe to say that Long's number is a distant third behind the fellows wearing #8 and #39.) Perhaps the biggest jersey number change of all time happened when Michael Jordan unretired, but refused to take his iconic #23 jersey down from the rafters, wearing 45 instead. Which Jordan jersey you wore became almost a political statement -- are you pining for the glory days or do you cheer his return?

That said, I kind of liked Long wearing the 72, lining up his legacy next to two of the franchise's all-time greats: Merlin Olsen's 74 and Deacon Jones' 75. Plus, thanks to Little's exploits on and off the field, his 91 still carries a bit of a political stigma among fans. There are many (though I am not one of them) that will refuse to ever forgive Little for his DUI manslaughter, and may have a harder time rooting for a number with this "history." (It's worth noting, though, that Long tweets that he got Little's blessing to take the number over.)

The 72 has no such stigma attached. indeed, it barely registers in the memory, before Long defined it. Its previous wearer, Adam Goldberg, gave it up easily enough when Long arrived. Before him, Milford Brown guarded it briefly. Chidi Ahanotu dressed it in blue and gold for a season. A tackle named Clarence Jones wore it for a couple of seasons spanning the move from LA to STL. Another named Robert Jenkins owned it from '87 to '93. He shows up statistically for one kickoff return for twelve yards in his rookie season. Safe to say that until Long wore it, the 72 was never feared. 

However, for Long, the 91 is special. The University of Virginia retired the jersey after his Senior season, one in which he piled up accolades as quickly as tackles for loss. He put on some dominant performances with that jersey, and is clearly hoping to continue his upward surge through the NFL in his fourth season with the Rams. 

The only pertinent question for Rams fans is: how quickly can I get a new Long jersey? The answer, frustratingly enough, is the same as every other question about the NFL right now: not until the owners and players untangle their CBA mess. NFL Properties cannot manufacture any new jerseys, any new promotional materials featuring active players, until a deal is done.

Just one more reason to root for something positive from this week's extended talks.

The key word for architecture of this generation is “sustainability.” This has a lot of meanings, from limiting the environmental impact of construction to the long-term health and financial viability of the stadium itself.

This will be a key consideration for Kroenke and the Rams: the Jones Dome will be twenty years old in 2015. Is that “old”? As has been well-reported by this point, the Rams have an opt-out clause in their stadium lease in 2015 if the Dome isn't one of the top 25% of stadiums in the league. Certainly that isn't the case today. Can it have a “sustained” life beyond that point?

Part two of our interview with Dennis Wellner, senior architect at Populous (formerly HOK Sport, designers of the Edward Jones Dome), looks at the many facets of sustainability, and what that means to the life cycle of the modern NFL stadium.

Introduction:

In 1983, four architects in Kansas City decided to build a practice exclusively focused on sports arenas: HOK Sport, now called Populous. Dennis Wellner was one of those four, and football stadiums became his niche. Since that time, perhaps no other person has had a hand in more football stadium designs.

Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami became their first major project to host an NFL game, in 1987. The second was what we now call the Edward Jones Dome, built to lure the Los Angeles Rams to St Louis in 1995. Barely fifteen years later, the dome has become the 19^th-oldest stadium in the league, and questions of its ability to support the Rams long term have arisen.

I was lucky enough to spend some time talking with Wellner about the unique challenges of NFL stadium design, the history of the Edward Jones Dome, and the possibilities facing the Rams in the coming years. This article is the first of two that span that interview. Because there is no active project between the Rams and Populous, we couldn’t go into specifics about the Rams’ next steps. But I was able to tap into his wealth of experience in the area, and give you an idea of the factors that Stan Kroenke and company will be considering.