ST. LOUIS — The mid-winter sky was gray, the wind was cold and the mood was as bitter as you might expect as sports fans here awoke Monday to their most miserable of football nightmares.

The Super Bowl will feature the franchise that bailed on them, relocated to the sunshine of Los Angeles and promptly got really, really good, playing against the club that defeated them in the last Super Bowl their local team reached, which is a wound that, as all Super Bowl losers know, never heals.

That’s right, it’s the Los Angeles Rams v. the New England Patriots … St. Louis-style, heavy on the salt.

“At first I wanted a sinkhole to open up and swallow the entire Super Bowl,” said Butch Hearn, of Wentzville, Missouri, as he had lunch downtown Monday. “Then I thought about a mid-air collision. But I realized that was too extreme.”

He laughed. This is still the nice Midwest after all. No need for mass casualties.

“So now I am just rooting for both teams to get food poisoning,” Hearns said.

Right. Much more reasonable.

“Seriously,” Hearns continued, “I don’t know what I am going to do for the Super Bowl.”

View photos The Rams cleared out of the Edward Jones Dome in January of 2016 and out of Missouri altogether, heading west toward Southern California. (AP) More

He isn’t alone around here. His lunch companion, Stephanie Garcia, also of Wentzville, swore she was “over it” but couldn’t promise she’d even watch the game. All across St. Louis the sentiment was repeated.

It was bad enough when the Rams, who played here from 1995-2015, relocated, stripping the town of the NFL for a second time (the now Arizona Cardinals played here from 1960-87). It was worse when after the Rams failed to reach the playoffs for their last 11 seasons in St. Louis, they suddenly became not just a winner again this season, but exciting again. It was like a remake of the “Greatest Show on Turf” teams that won St. Louis Super Bowl XXXIV in February of 2000.

“This should’ve been our Super Bowl,” said Richard Williams of St. Louis, as he walked near the Rams’ old stadium downtown, what is now called the “Dome at America’s Center.” It hosts an occasional concert and convention but not much else. “Those are our Rams.”

Instead of a city pulsating with excitement, there is nothing. No banners. No T-shirts in the storefronts (nothing NFL related, actually it’s all Cardinals and Blues and Mizzou Tigers). The Dome looks forgotten. The parking lots around seem pointless.

Then there is the case of the Patriots. In Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, the Rams were 14-point favorites. The city was all but certain of a second Vince Lombardi Trophy. Then a couple guys named Bill Belichick and Tom Brady delivered a crushing upset. No one has forgotten, and since the unfounded conspiracy theory that the Patriots taped the Rams’ walkthrough the day before the game still lingers here, some haven’t forgiven.

So many/most/all spent Sunday fruitlessly rooting for the New Orleans Saints and the Kansas City Chiefs, which as Missouri’s now only NFL franchise, has gained popularity here on the eastside of the state. If the Chiefs had made it then folks around here could go into the Super Bowl rooting for the Rams to get blown out. Instead to have that happen, New England gets the joy. It’s not much of a consolation, although it’ll probably have to do.

“Everybody hates the Rams,” Hearns said. “I don’t know anyone who likes the Rams. Everyone I knew was rooting for the Chiefs and the Saints. Instead we get the Rams and Patriots. I saw a lot of cursing on Facebook.”

It’s not just that the Rams left, either. There is a measure of perspective. The city needed a new stadium. And the Rams were in California from 1946-1994. “How can you be mad at a place that took back a team that you took from them,” Garcia noted.

View photos It was all smiles and fanfare in St. Louis as moving trucks brought in the Rams’ equipment from Los Angeles in June of 1995. (Getty Images) More

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