This comes as no surprise. Peacock made huge business deals with the NFL during his years at Anheuser-Busch and is well known, and respected, in league circles. And Peacock has been working diligently behind the scenes on the stadium project for more than a year. Blitz was involved with the St. Louis bid to secure the Rams, and NFL execs know and like him.

Peacock and Blitz appear to be well on the way of convincing the NFL to take the St. Louis efforts seriously. And if nothing else, the task force is buying St. Louis more time to come up with a viable stadium plan, which would all but secure the Rams’ continued presence here through the 2015 season.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that St. Louis is guaranteed of keeping the Rams long term.

The Rams can revert to a year-to-year lease after the 2014 season ends. It’s easy to come up with a preliminary stadium plan; funding the project will be a more difficult and complex challenge.

Based on news reports over the last several days, it seems less likely that the NFL will permit any team to move and set up in Los Angeles by the start of the 2015 season.