Jeff Fisher didn't just pick the Rams over the Dolphins. He picked Stan Kroenke over Stephen Ross, preferring an owner whose style is a lot more like the Patriots' low-key Robert Kraft than the Cowboys' ostentatious Jerry Jones. He sided with an experienced sports executive who made it clear that he already knows his way around the ownership block rather than a neophyte who appears to be a bit too infatuated with the glitzy spotlight that comes with being a member of the NFL's exclusive ownership fraternity.

A lot was riding on this hotly contested pursuit of Fisher, the biggest jewel in this year's NFL head coaching catalog. Perception vs. reality. Image vs. stature. Embarrassment vs. validity. Consternation vs. confirmation. A dispirited fan base vs. an energized one.

In Miami right now, they are grumbling that Ross blew it, lamenting how sorry their no-account franchise must be if Fisher picked the pitiful Rams over the woeful Dolphins. It's the same thing we'd be doing here if things had gone the other way, and there's no amount of clever spin control that could have softened the blow of losing the Fisher sweepstakes.

Signing Fisher doesn't guarantee the Rams will become a successful franchise again. But Fisher's coaching credibility does offer something Rams fans have lost over the past decade.

Hope.

And that's why it was so important for Kroenke to win this tug-of-war with Ross. Fisher's hiring energizes a fan base that desperately needs it. Losing out to Ross and the Dolphins would have been perceived as a public embarrassment. Losing out to Ross would have meant that the best coach on the market looked at the Rams as too much damaged goods, even with all the positive things the franchise clearly had in its favor over the Dolphins. Losing Fisher would have started a rush of panic among conspiracy theorists who are convinced that Kroenke is going to move the Rams to Los Angeles, since Fisher said he had reservations about a potential franchise relocation.

Kroenke was smart enough to understand all of this, which is why he had no hesitation about giving Fisher all the power he needs to run the entire football operation. That's something that the inexperienced Ross couldn't quite figure out. "We always talked about — and he agreed — that you have to have a relationship between the GM and the coach, to act as a partnership," Ross told The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post. "You can't have an organization where one is deciding over the other. They have to work together, or you have a very dysfunctional organization."

So Ross decided that his general manager, Jeff Ireland, and his consultant, Carl Peterson, were more important than Fisher (Big mistake. Huge. But on behalf of a grateful Rams Nation, Mr. Ross, we send you a big, fat "Thank you."). And Fisher was smart enough to realize the potential mess that was waiting for him in Miami. It's called a classic power struggle, and Fisher wanted nothing to do with that no matter how much money Ross was dangling in front of him.

To an experienced head coach who knows how to win, power is more important than money. A lot of Rams fans wish that Kroenke would be one of those bold, hands-on owners like Jerry Jones, who holds press conferences after every game, craves the spotlight and makes bold proclamations at the top of every hour.

Luckily, he isn't that guy or chances are Fisher wouldn't be coming to St. Louis. Here's who Kroenke is: He's the guy who is smart enough to hire damned good people, smart enough to know exactly what it takes to help them win, gives it to them, then he gets out of their way and lets them do their jobs.

When Fisher sat down with the Rams, Kroenke made it clear that Fisher would be in charge of football operations, would help choose the new general manager and basically set the new course of the organization. That was very appealing to Fisher, who spent 17 years in Houston and Tennessee with owner Bud Adams, who earned the nickname "Bottom-line Bud" for his tightfisted ways with salaries (for players and coaches) and for interfering too much in the way the team should be run (for example, running quarterback Steve McNair out of town and insisting that Vince Young be drafted to replace him).

Here's an interesting comment gleaned from Jason Cole, of Yahoo! Sports. According to Cole, a source familiar with the Miami negotiations recounted this conversation between Fisher and Ross that should tell you everything you need to know about why he chose Kroenke and the Rams over Ross and the Dolphins:

"I've been a head coach for 17 years and 12 of them sucked because I had to fight for what I wanted."

He won't have to fight for anything here, because Kroenke has given him ultimate authority to shape the future of the Rams. It is a page ripped right out of the book, "War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building The Perfect Team," that Kroenke says mirrors his beliefs on how winning franchises operate, and this is proof of that.

Fisher will map this all out. He will decide what this franchise's personality will be, and there will be no confusion about it. The scouts will know what they are looking for because Fisher will tell them. Everyone will be on the same page, from top to bottom and for the first time in the history of the St. Louis Rams franchise we will know without a doubt who is in charge.

That's something Fisher has earned by virtue of his distinguished résumé. If it works, he'll rightfully be regarded as a hero in this town. And if it fails, we'll know why it failed, too.

But for the first time in ages, we know that the guy in charge has done this job before, and he has a room full of players — an entire organization for that matter — who not only know that but can't wait to follow his direction.