One day after Commissioner Roger Goodell said that Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy the St. Louis Rams would receive little support from NFL ownership, Limbaugh was dropped from the group of investors hoping to buy the team. 'Rush was to be a limited partner -- as such, he would have had no say in the direction of the club or in any decisions regarding personnel or operations,' said Dave Checketts, the former Madison Square Garden executive who is leading the group that included Limbaugh. 'This was a role he enthusiastically embraced. However, it has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions, endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move forward without him and hope it will eventually lead us to a successful conclusion.' Checketts is a widely respected sports executive and the owner of the St. Louis Blues. He was interviewed as a candidate for the NFL commissioner's job before it went to Goodell, who was the heavy favorite, in 2006. But several NFL owners, who ended three days of meetings in Boston on Wednesday, quietly wondered why a savvy businessman like Checketts would hitch his hopes for the Rams to Limbaugh, a conservative radio talk-show host, and fail to anticipate the negative reaction. In his statement, Checketts said that Limbaugh's involvement made sense because he was born 100 miles south of St. Louis, is an avid NFL fan and had an interest in keeping the Rams in St. Louis rather than allowing the team to move to another market, which another ownership group may do. Checketts' group surely needed Limbaugh's deep pockets, too, and even with Limbaugh in the group, there was doubt among the league owners that Checketts had enough money for a successful bid. Once word leaked that Limbaugh was involved, several retired and current players said they objected to Limbaugh's involvement and said players would not join the Rams as free agents if Limbaugh became an owner of the Rams. Then the executive director of the players union, DeMaurice Smith, expressed his concern about Limbaugh and encouraged players to speak up. The players' opposition to Limbaugh is rooted largely in his comments about race. The most famous of those came when he spoke about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb in 2003, while Limbaugh worked for ESPN. After Goodell's comments and those of Jim Irsay, the Colts' owner, who said he could not support a bid that involved Limbaugh, Limbaugh's exit from the bid seemed all but inevitable, although on his radio show Wednesday -- hours before Checketts made his statement -- Limbaugh vowed not to drop out. 