This was the same message Goodell said he delivered to Gov. Jay Nixon a couple of days after NFL owners voted to allow the Rams' return to Los Angeles.

Thomas also asked Goodell how Rams' owner Stan Kroenke's reluctance to meet with the St. Louis stadium task force met the league's relocation guidelines, which ask owners to work with a home market that is trying to keep its team. The task force pitched a riverfront stadium project. partly paid by public dollars, that Kroenke and the league showed little to no interest in.

"Frequently, we (the league) would negotiate on behalf of ownership, a stadium arrangement," Goodell said. "We have a great deal of experience in it. We also have different clubs that take different approaches. Owners don't always get involved with task forces, or with public officials. There was a process in St. Louis which was detailed in their lease, and was required. They (the Rams) went through that in excruciating detail. In fact, in several cases, there were changes to that process. There was an acknowledgement that the current facilities were not suitable longterm for an NFL team. There were also acknowledgments that they didn't get solutions that would allow that to occur.