"All my ball was played here," said the 70-year-old living legend. "But all my history left Los Angeles when the Rams left town. They didn't treat Georgia (Frontiere) very well when she had the team here, so when she left, all the history of the Los Angeles Rams just stopped existing. She cut it all off. I understand why she did. She was mad. They treated her bad and so she reacted by cutting everything about LA off. But then I got caught in the middle of all of that. She shut off the linkage from what we did here when the team moved to St. Louis."

They should have retired Jones' jersey a long time ago. But even now that the Rams are making amends for that horrible slight (owner Chip Rosenbloom announced last week that the team will retire Jones' No. 75 jersey this fall), the greatest defensive player in NFL history still wishes it could have happened in Southern California.

"It doesn't make sense that a city as large as this has no NFL team," Jones said. "But I've been down that road like everyone else around here too many times. I keep trying to figure out what's keeping it from happening, and it doesn't make sense to me. And no one ever can make sense of it when they try to explain it...It's all about the politicians. And I don't know what they want. All the jobs it could provide. All the prestige it could provide. It's been going on for longer than my number hasn't been retired."

Most of the NFL lovers in LA are a lot like Deacon Jones. Even though there are nervous conspiracy theorists back in St. Louis who are convinced that the Rams will be sold and swept off in the middle of the night back to Los Angeles, the popular sentiment among locals is frustration. They see no way for the Rams to return, and have resigned themselves to the concept that the NFL may never return.

But that doesn't stop some very rich and ambitious people from continuing to try. About 20 miles north of Jones' home, which is near Disneyland, the golden waves of dry brush blowing gently on the hillside like tall stalks of wheat look a bit odd in the midst of this vast urban sprawl just north of the intersection of the Pomona and Orange freeways. There are tidy condos and trailer parks on one side of the hill, and neatly landscaped streets full of industrial parks, auto and shopping malls encircling this neighborhood that most NFL-loving Los Angelinos believe is the location of their last best pro Football pipe dream.

Billionaire real estate developer Ed Roski Jr. wants to build an $800 million stadium complex there in order to lure an NFL franchise back to Los Angeles. Most people in LA and more than a few significant ones within the NFL's inner circle are convinced that this is an impossible mission. Even with a net worth of more than $2.5 billion, it turns out that the man Forbes ranked as the 195th richest man in America still may not have enough cash to get the job done.

The publicity-shy Roski doesn't talk very much, but his stadium plan has been bogged down by potential lawsuits and other annoying delays. It appears that his best chance to lure a team to Los Angeles is the San Diego Chargers, not the Rams . But Roski wants a majority share of an NFL team, and he's discovering how difficult it is to buy in to this very exclusive club.

We still are months away from knowing whether Roski could end up as a potential buyer for the 60-percent stake that Rosenbloom and his family are trying to sell. According to well-placed NFL sources familiar with details of the potential sale, there are confidentiality clauses in place that prohibit both potential buyers and the sellers from revealing the identities of legitimate buyers. But if any do emerge publicly, it would only happen once the first round of the due diligence process is completed by the early fall.

There's no way of knowing exactly how many people have already been contacted or how many groups have put their names into contention, but if anyone does surface, it should happen as early as the beginning of the regular season in September.

So while Los Angeles continues to dream of securing another NFL team, the reality for the Rams sale continues to be purely a St. Louis story. So the scene once again shifts away from Los Angeles and back several hours to the East. According to league sources, that St. Louis story will have two main plot lines worth watching.

Plot Line No. 1: What can be done locally to make purchasing the Rams a lot more appealing than it is now? One issue lingering over this potential sale continues to be the growing belief around the league that St. Louis is no longer considered a "plus" NFL marketplace. Because of the current state of the stadium lease, lukewarm corporate sponsorship and middling fan support, finding excited and motivated buyers could be difficult.

A lot can happen this season to change that perception. The Rams need to find a way to capture the same sort of fan loyalty and corporate support that the baseball Cardinals have traditionally received and the NHL Blues seem to have sparked over the past two seasons.

Winning would help. But the Football side of the building would also benefit from a far more creative and aggressive marketing strategy from the business side of the franchise.

Plot Line No. 2: WWSKD (What will Stan Kroenke Do)? No matter what happens with the roundup of potential buyers, the real intrigue over the next few months continues to hinge on the silence of minority owner Kroenke. More than a month has elapsed since Rosenbloom confirmed that the team was officially for sale, and we still have heard nothing from the billionaire Kroenke, who owns a 40-percent stake in the Rams .

No one seems to know what Kroenke's long-range plan is, and chances are that is by design. He is the ultimate wild card in this sale because of the myriad ways he has to make or wreck any potential deal. Kroenke can match any offer for Rosenbloom's 60 percent. He also has the ability to force any potential buyer to also buy the entire 100 percent of the franchise. There may be someone who is interested in doing that, but the chances are that Kroenke could also wreck the entire deal because most potential buyers wouldn't want to buy the entire 100 percent. It's also possible that this deal-breaking potential could be leverage for Kroenke to increase the value of his 40 percent stake.

What would it be worth to the potential buyers or Rosenbloom to keep Kroenke from being a spoiler? Would they have to pay him added value not to use his ability to be a spoiler in any possible deal?

Of course, there is one other scenario for Kroenke, too. Could he be positioning himself for a play at buying the entire controlling interest in the Rams ?

There are some within the league who believe Kroenke could be leveraging himself into a position of strength so that he can get the NFL to change (or waive) its rules regarding cross-ownership (Kroenke owns the NBA Denver Nuggets and NHL Colorado Avalanche).

So forget about Los Angeles and keep your eyes on Denver. That's where all the delicious plot twists in this Rams story seem to be located.