Why Jets Fan Joe Lo Truglio is Now Rooting for the Rams

Joe Lo Truglio was at the Sundance Film Festival, supposedly watching movies, when he gave himself away. Phone in one hand at the back of the theater, he was double-screening the Rams and the Seahawks while the film played, and the ending on his phone disappointed him a lot more than anything on the big screen.

That confession opened a bit that Rich clearly enjoyed, because he lives it too. Lo Truglio is a Jets fan who has become a Rams fan, and he does not pretend the transition was clean. The Rams, in his telling, are the healthy rebound after a bad habit.

"I've divorced the Jets," Lo Truglio said. "The Jets are my ex that I can never quit." He pointed to the viral video of the kid swearing he will always be a Jets fan, and he gets it. He will always keep tabs on the ex, always check how she is looking. But he needed to move on to something that gave something back. "The Rams provide that for me," he said. "The reciprocal relationship. I feel like my needs are met. My complaints are heard."

Rich echoed the sentiment and admitted he takes grief for it, including from his own kid. His youngest son, Cooper, a Patriots fan, calls him a "passionate Rams fan," and Rich made clear the word passionate is not a compliment when Cooper says it.

Lo Truglio reached for one more analogy, the recovery arc. When you take care of a problem and stop drinking, he said, the friends who still drink give you a hard time for skipping the party. The move is to stay on course. "Day by day," he said. "One foot in front of the other."

Then came the football. Lo Truglio is bullish. "We have an incredible team this year, the Rams," he said, before he and Rich talked themselves into a running joke about an undefeated season so dominant that going 17-0 would actually be a problem, since it would mean skipping a playoff bye.

The one real ache was a departure. "It was very difficult to lose Jared Verse," Lo Truglio said, calling it a great trade even as it stung. He was not arguing the deal should not have happened. As Rich framed it, you can land Myles Garrett at this stage and at that salary, and the math starts to make sense, retirement jokes about Aaron Donald included.

Lo Truglio saved his boldest swing for the exit, and he wanted Rich to yell at him for it. "The Verse and the new quarterback that the Cleveland Browns, whoever they pick," he said, "the Cleveland Browns will be in the AFC title game in four years."

"Mark it down," he said. "Four years."

It was the kind of take that only a recovering fan makes, a guy who traded a heartbreak he could not quit for a team that, at least for now, is loving him back.