The Rams are among the Super Bowl favourites this year as their move to Los Angeles coincides with an upturn in fortunes. Ahead of their switch to Hollywood two years ago, editor Matthew Sherry took the pulse of their new home.

For a first-timer, the long stroll along Santa Monica beach can feel a little unnerving. Where else would you see a little girl with biceps easing through Gladiator-style ‘monkey rings’ across a beach? Or a man-giant hanging upside down 20ft in the air in the most public of gyms, with only his bulging arms to stop him plunging? Or a  kid playing a drum kit handcrafted out of plastic bottles and coke tins? This is the land of the free-spirit, a place where the freakish is commonplace.

Except for one sight. We were a month removed from the big vote (not that one) and among the junk masterfully moulded into Star Wars characters and sea-rock jewellery, a man assembling his stall. Towels were his bag, and he unfurled them all – Pittsburgh, Miami, Indianapolis – before putting his masterpiece out front. The helmet was surrounded by words some in these parts thought they’d never see again, ‘LOS ANGELES RAMS’.

If a lone stall amid a collection of tat doesn’t hint at a groundswell of excitement, its location surely does. It’s hard to imagine league owners pinpointing the Santa Monica crowd as their target market when they handed in their slips on January 12. Their audience was always likely to come largely from other demographics that make up the 18.7m people in the greater Los Angeles area – a combination of old Rams supporters and a younger generation reared on an NFL that felt so close, but so far away. Yet, even here, a place where pigskins play second fiddle to roller-skates, there is anticipation.

“I’m very excited, and I think the city is too,” defensive tackle Michael Brockers tells Gridiron. “When you have a city as excited as the team, it’s amazing.”

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“It’s a fresh start for us and there are going to be some new opportunities. You might even see a couple of Rams in commercials!”

If we closed our eyes and listened as he spoke, we might have been forgiven for forgetting a burly, near-300lb defensive lineman was sat across the table. Aaron Donald’s words felt like those of a league executive. For the NFL’s protracted return to Los Angeles was about much more than millions of fans held over from the Rams’ initial incarnation in Hollywood. They naturally played a part: the prospect of a $985million stadium sitting half-empty in three years wouldn’t gel with the league’s image. But the bottom line, as is so often the case, was the dollar sign.

Donald’s comments, for all that they give an insight into the modern sporting landscape, ring true. While St. Louis provided the backdrop for a truly great pro-football team in The Greatest Show On Turf, it’s not a town that can compete with America’s city of stars. During the years L.A. spent in the NFL doldrums, something was always missing. The idea of the sport becoming ever-more ingrained in mainstream American life, while Hollywood just stood on the sidelines, felt increasingly anomalous.

And so, 21 years after the Los Angeles Rams left town, they thanked St. Louis for the memories and returned home.

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While the overriding response to the Rams’ return has been one of triumphalism, there are exceptions. “It was kind of weird at first, because you do feel bad for the fans in St. Louis,” star running back Todd Gurley tells Gridiron. “In my time growing up, all I ever knew was the St. Louis Rams, so to take a team out of the city makes you feel bad.”

Gurley hits upon one of the great lost themes of this whole story. A generation of fans have been robbed of their team this off-season, but hardly anybody has mentioned it. In L.A., sympathy is certainly in short supply. For St. Louis Rams fans now, read L.A. Rams fans of nearly a decade ago. “These moves mean teams leave large fanbases, just like St. Louis,” L.A. Times reporter Sam Farmer, who has spent the last two decades covering this story, tells Gridiron. “St. Louis are enraged about their team leaving, much like many Los Angeles fans were. But now those in Los Angeles are delighted. They remember the Rams’ time in L.A. and are looking at this as a restoration, not a relocation.”

For Farmer, relating is easy. He is one of those with a vested interest having spent 20 years crusading for this triumphant comeback. “It’s a strange feeling,” he said. “It’s something I’ve lived with for the last 20 years and it’s hard to believe it’s over. The first call I made was to room service to have a six-pack of beer brought up.

“Right before the votes were cast, I got a call from Eric Dickerson asking what was happening – and that was really cool. I had one of the all-time great Rams players calling me asking what was going on. It was a chill down my spine moment, but then it was very surreal. One of those occasions where you wonder if it really happened. Until I see the ball in the air, I don’t quite believe it’s real.”

The giddy feeling extends far beyond Farmer, though. “Los Angeles has had this too-cool-for-school apathy about the NFL because it’s consumed it from the couch, but now everybody is excited. My wife tells me that people on her Facebook page are talking about it who she didn’t even know were Rams fans. Someone in the supermarket had configured soda cans in the shape of the NFL shield the other day too; there is lots of excitement among football fans in Los Angeles. They’ve been the Ellis Island of NFL fans, with everybody else represented, but now they have something to get behind.”

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“We can’t wait for it. We and the fans are pumped up. We’re getting to work and making sure we give those supporters something to cheer about.”

Of all the statements Donald makes in our interview, this might be the most pertinent. The cold reality of just what awaits Los Angeles’ new heroes may not yet have registered amid the honeymoon period, but it will. There will come a time, with this delirium in the rear-view mirror, when the fans will show their true colours.

Los Angeles is a demanding sports town that rarely experiences failure. Many of the fans who pack into the Coliseum for the first home game will do so having been brought up on the Lakers winning championships. They are used to winning, and will make their dissatisfaction clear when that isn’t happening. One of the abiding memories of the Rams’ previous stint in La La Land was how the fans simply weren’t as interested when things weren’t going well. And if that doesn’t bring enough scrutiny, the Rams re-enter the scene at a time when an entitled group is enduring a rare patch in the doldrums.

The tag that has often accompanied Los Angeles in recent years is ‘basketball town’. That’s reality in an era when the Clippers have established themselves as perennial playoff contenders, viable rivals to the commercial pull of the Lakers. But it’s the fortunes of those NBA outfits that contribute to the gaping gap in the market.

The Clippers, despite their excellent head coach and array of stars, continue to be a nearly team, while their illustrious cross-town rivals have, too, spent the last few years as also-rans. That Kobe Bryant has just retired only confirms the sense of a void, and the Rams are primed to fill it. No pressure. “We’re going to have the Coliseum rocking,” adds Brockers. “There are going to be over 90,000 people in that stadium; the first game is going to be ridiculous. I’ve got chills already just thinking about it.”

If recent penchant for mediocrity fails to inspire confidence, at least the roster does. With or without the move, this squad – much like throughout Jeff Fisher’s inglorious tenure – looked primed to take the next step. The issue is consistency. They are consistently inconsistent. To see the evidence, just look back at head coach Fisher’s time with the Rams. They’ve finished 7-8-1, 7-9, 6-10, 7-9. It puts them in a kind of purgatory with Fisher clinging onto his job by virtue of neither being great nor terrible.

Just why the veteran coach hasn’t been able to take the next step is the great unknown, especially as he certainly seems to have believers in the locker-room. “We’re with him 110 per cent,” says Donald. “We believe in everything we’re doing and we believe in the talent that he’s brought in. We need to just start strongly, get some games won and build some momentum.”

“We love him,” adds Brockers. “This is a brotherhood and we wouldn’t be who we are without him. I really appreciate him drafting me and bringing me along. We feel like we can get to where we want to be with him. I feel like this team is on the verge of making that leap forward. We lost three or four games in overtime or by a field goal last year; had we won those games, we’d have gotten a wildcard and been in the playoffs at a time when we were on fire.”

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The feeling entering 2016 is that the stars have aligned, and not just metaphorically. Everywhere you look there are electrifying players: Tavon Austin, Robert Quinn, Trumaine Johnson. And then there are the main two, genre-defining game-changers: Donald and Gurley.

“He’s a student of the game,” Brockers says of Donald. “I’m always asking him questions about why he’s doing this and that in a game; I probably annoy him a bit! It gets to me a little that he makes so many plays; it’s hard not to get jealous! If you see somebody making plays, you want to make plays. But what Aaron does is what he does; I just try to work off it. Maybe I let him get after it and get a cheap sack or something when the quarterback starts running for his life!”

The hint of awe in Brockers’ voice as he speaks is logical given Donald approaches his third season as the only defensive player in the same otherworldly stratosphere as the Houston Texans’ J.J. Watt. The undersized defensive tackle is an athletic freak who terrorises opposing offensive lines with his blend of quickness and technical excellence. “Last year was the type of year I dreamed about as a kid,” he admits. “I wanted to have success so early, but it’s just the beginning. I’ve got a lot of work I still need to do and things that need cleaning up. I haven’t even played my best football yet. There’s a lot more to come.”

Where most teams only have one Donald-type if they are lucky, the Rams possess two. In second-year man Gurley, they boast a player with the potential to be the NFL’s next great running back. Despite coming off a torn ACL suffered at the end of his final year in college, he accrued over 1,100 rushing yards in just 13 starts to be named Offensive Rookie of the Year. And that was in a campaign when little was expected given his health.

“Getting back on the field gave me goosebumps,” reveals Gurley. “It was a sense of relief to know all of that hard work and rehab had paid off. I can’t wait to get back on the field again this year now. It’s unbelievable the way I developed over the course of the year.” Not that he was fully satisfied. “My first game, the steps I was taking were all wrong. I could have had a big day then too!”

When Gurley does step back on the field in September, the likelihood is that he will be taking hand-offs from a new quarterback after the Rams traded a king’s ransom to move up to first overall in the draft and selected Jared Goff from Cal. Whether that was a desperate last throw of the dice from general manager Les Snead and Fisher in the hope of saving their jobs, or a masterstroke that will provide the missing piece remains to be seen. “If the quarterback move pays off, they have a chance to really do something,” adds Farmer.

And if it doesn’t work out, Hollywood may well provide the opportunity for a nice career change. “I’m not a movie star yet,” adds Gurley, “but if there are any job openings, I’m open to it!”

The irony that he might be about to star in the most interesting blockbuster to come out of Hollywood in recent years shouldn’t be lost on anyone.