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Will you be watching?

If not, I’m with you. And it appears our group is growing.

The TV experts predict NFL ratings will drop again this year. The reasons are many.

Games are long, and a skilled cowboy can now stay on a bull longer than our average attention span lasts. The clash between players, owners and President Trump over protests during the national anthem has alienated the “stick to sports� crowd. And then there is that pesky increasing awareness about the impact of head injuries.

None of these reasons chased me away, I am somewhat ashamed to admit.

Football remains one of my favorite sports. A better understanding of its delayed danger complicates matters, but those thoughts are conveniently packed away beneath Friday night lights and during college football Saturdays. I would swallow them during NFL games as well. That’s if I still had the stomach for the league.

What was once a devotion has devolved. It became a disinterest. Now it’s a distaste.

My hand automatically reaches for the radio dial when local sports programming starts breaking down the Chiefs’ defensive line. My ears stop working when you mention your fantasy football team. My eyes, truly opened to the cracks in The Shield during the relocation ripoff, have had an increasingly hard time focusing on the field.

It has become too hard to ignore what takes place off it.

A league that despises dreaded “distractions� even more than an outspoken black quarterback has multiple impossible-to-ignore issues playing out in courtrooms and in the court of public opinion.

Failing to find common ground on the pregame protests this offseason was a significant mistake. The debate has the potential to overtake every game. It’s exhausting.

Meanwhile, the refusal of owners to employ quarterback Colin Kaepernick becomes more mind-numbing every time another subpar starter and no-name backup appears on a depth chart. You don’t have to agree with Kaepernick’s polarizing political beliefs to pause at this reality — teams prefer to cut checks to domestic abusers over a player with a platform. Kaepernick, like the protests against racial inequality he started, isn’t disappearing. Neither is his collusion grievance against the league, which is expected to reach a hearing this year. What a national spectacle that will become.

Much closer to home, and much more more quietly, another storm builds.

In the coming days, Post-Dispatch colleague Jim Thomas will publish an update on the multiple lawsuits filed against the Rams since they trashed St. Louis and went west for fame and fortune.

• Read the article: Rams football games are long gone from St. Louis, but the legal ones go on

While Rams owner Stan Kroenke is becoming a media darling in Los Angeles, he remains a loser here.

He has not been able to wiggle off the hook for duping personal seat license holders in St. Louis. A fight over the practice facility the team left behind continues. And then there is the main event, the lawsuit filed by St. Louis officials that aims to prove Kroenke, the league and team owners violated the league’s relocation guidelines and committed multiple legal penalties during the relocation process, including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraudulent misrepresentation and tortious interference. Essentially, the lawsuit asks how the NFL went from stressing the importance of its own relocation guidelines to shrugging them off as no big deal. It calls out lies, like this memorable gem from Kroenke years ago:

“I’m going to attempt to do everything I can to keep the Rams in St. Louis. I’ve always stepped up for pro football in St. Louis. And I’m stepping up again. I’m born and raised in Missouri. People know I can be trusted. People know I’m an honorable man.�

Compare that to his recent quote to The Los Angeles Times:

“I love L.A., it’s a unique and wonderful place, and we really wanted to do it right. The people truly do appreciate having the Rams back, they view it as their team that came home, and it’s really been wonderful to be part of this.�

Bold, considering Kroenke helped lead the Rams out of Los Angeles in the first place. Anyway, just how long did he want to lead them back? That’s the kind of question lawyer Bob Blitz is out to answer.

Blitz and his legal team, working on contingency while representing the St. Louis Regional Convention and ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Complex Authority, the city and the county, have showed zero signs of a desire to settle. Twice, they have claimed important wins. The St. Louis Circuit Court declined to dismiss the suit and blocked an attempt to steer the case to arbitration. Then the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District once again shut the arbitration door. The Missouri Supreme Court is probably the next stop, and then a trial — and the nitty-gritty discovery that would come with it — becomes a real possibility.

Kroenke and the NFL share an approach when it comes to pending litigation. Keep it pending. ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ want St. Louis to move on, to forget, to give up. Stop being a distraction. Enjoy the games.

I hope they have underestimated the city they torched.

The potential reward, on top of millions lost in tax revenue and the failed attempt to keep the team, is becoming easier to imagine.

Seeing Kroenke and the men who helped his shameless hustle face questions in court would be better than any game their warped league could produce.