This time last year, Rams president Kevin Demoff at the NFL Annual Meeting said he didn't think the organization has ever been in a better place than it was entering the 2025 season, given not only the shape of both the team and the fanbase, but also it finding its footing and what it does well, and where the opportunities existed for growth.
On the field, that came to fruition in the form of an MVP season from quarterback Matthew Stafford and falling one win shy of a third Super Bowl appearance in nine years, though it was still the seventh time reaching the playoffs in that same span. Off the field, that included staging their annual "draft house" draft headquarters at Los Angeles Fire Department Air Operations in Van Nuys to support first responders after the devastating January 2025 wildfires, and announcing plans for Rams Village at Warner Center, which will include the permanent headquarters and training facility for the team.
As of January 12, the Rams have been back in Los Angeles for a decade. In those 10 years they've have created a standard upheld by the following:
- Hiring the youngest head coach in NFL history in a then-30-year-old Sean McVay, who has since reached the playoffs in seven of nine seasons with two Super Bowl appearances (won Super Bowl LVI, the franchise's first in L.A.), two NFC championship appearances, achieved a winning record in those seven seasons and joined Curly Lambeau and George Halas as the third coach to win 100 combined games before turning 40.
- The construction of SoFi Stadium, which USA TODAY readers voted as the ninth-best NFL Stadium last year, with the surrounding Hollywood Park campus coming to life.
- As of December 2025, the third-most valuable sports franchise in the world, according to Forbes, and second-most valuable NFL team.
Beyond the annual draft house (and draft films) that have helped make the draft an ownable moment despite only picking in the first round twice from 2016-2025, it also built to the following off the field in 2025:
- 35,066 youth involved in youth and high school football efforts
- 29,926 students engaged in educational health and wellness programs
- 9,108 tickets donated to community groups
- 4,914 community service hours by players, cheerleaders, Rampage and staff
- 603 schools impacted
- 130 non-profits impacted
- Nearly $2 million donated to fire relief and recovery efforts, along with 39 fire relief and recovery events.
Additionally, the Rams have grown their international home marketing areas to seven countries: China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Australia, where in Week 1 they will take on the 49ers at historic Melbourne Cricket Ground for the NFL's first-ever Australia game.
Year after year, the bar becomes higher, the standard raised. Demoff's expectation for the next decade, plus?
Aim higher.
"When I look at the organization, I would say we had an amazing year," Demoff said Tuesday at the NFL Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. "We built on that, and we're set up for another amazing year. But I think a decade in, the bar for this organization needs to continue to rise, right? We have one of the greatest opportunities in sports. We're the NFL team in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium. If we don't use that every day to go try to be the biggest and most valuable sports brand in the word, shame on us. We should be pushing the envelope on the field. We should be pushing the envelope off the field.
"And so I feel there's not a day I walk into our building and don't feel great about where we sit as an organization. There's not a day I walk in the building and know that the group we've assembled isn't capable of more."
Just as when the same discussion took place at least year's annual league meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, many of the organization's goals remain the same, chief among them continuing to grow the fan base (Demoff noted SoFi Stadium "was full and blue for the majority of home games last year") and becoming more ingrained in the community, both of which are what Demoff said "we wake up thinking about every day."
Other goals reflect what lies ahead, such as figuring out how to capitalize on the upcoming season being bookended by a Week 1 game in Australia and SoFi Stadium hosting Super Bowl LXI in February 2027.
"I feel pretty lucky to be surrounded by the 300 people we have in this building each day, and to be able to walk into this meeting every year and say, 'I think the organization's in a really great place,' and have no one say, 'You're nuts,' right?" Demoff said. "Which, people have gladly told before, when I've said the organization's in a good place, and people are like, 'You're full of s---.' I'm like, 'Okay, we'll see.' But last year I said it, and no one really – I think people can see it, and this year I feel just as strongly."
That feeling comes from having an MVP quarterback, McVay and general manager Les Snead signing multi-year contract extensions earlier this year, and having a talented young roster. The coaching staff kept defensive coordinator Chris Shula and Nate Scheelhaase – who was promoted to offensive coordinator – and also added Kliff Kingsbury as an assistant head coach.
At the same time, Demoff also echoed what McVay has said since the end of a special 2025 season: Just because they reached the NFC Championship Game, or more generally achieved the success they did, doesn't guarantee that will happen again the following year. Snead has shared similar sentiments, like during his end-of-2023-season press conference in January 2024 when he used a bronze sculpture of Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill as a metaphor capturing the bittersweet feelings of the end of the season: "You get the boulder as high up the mountain as you can," he said at the time, "then it just rolls back down."
It applies just as much now as it did then.
"The organization's in a great place, but it's fragile. Like every team in the NFL, it's fragile. Success one year does not beget success in another," Demoff said. "I mean, we don't sit here being one play away from beating Seattle, right, and executing a fourth down – we sit here 0-and-0, tied with every other team in the NFC West, and every other team in the NFC, and you got to go climb that mountain again. And that is not easy."
Big-picture, Demoff annually talks about "when people write the story about whether the NFL got it right in choosing the Rams to come back to L.A., did they get it right?" That answer, Demoff said, must be "yes." Much has already been done in the last 10 years on and off the field to help ensure that, but the work must continue to elevate the already high standard central to that mission.
"I feel great walking into this meeting and seeing the place that our staff, our players and coaches have earned in the NFL, but we're now leaders in this league, on the field and off the field, and I think that's a challenge that in a standard we have to live up to every day," Demoff said. "And that's what's exciting. Whether it's Australia, whether it's everything else we're doing, I can't wait to get started on that."
