re: Chargers moving to LA

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Jim Trotter ?@JimTrotter_NFL Jan 10
Said one source: "The league views SD as salvageable. Oakland is not." Hence, tomorrow's meeting to clear a path for Raiders to Vegas.

Jim Trotter ?@JimTrotter_NFL Jan 10
Knowledgeable NFL people are telling me a Hail Mary is developing to keep the Chargers in SD at least two more years. I hope they're right.

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Spanos is leaning heavily toward picking up his option and taking his team to L.A. to co-habit with one of his least favorite people, Rams owner Stan Kroenke. A growing number of owners who desperately wanted this very result a year ago are now in a blue-gold panic after seeing how soft the Los Angeles market truly is with one team, and are trying to convince Spanos to give San Diego one final no-kidding-this-is-it window to give Spanos what he wants, stadium-wise.

Spanos, for his part, knows how the owners screwed him (and Davis) a year ago from going to L.A. and is finally in a position to wreak his revenge on them all – either by going anyway, which he can do without asking for permission, or driving up the cost to the league of staying in a town that doesn’t like him.

Davis has made it clear he wants Las Vegas, and his presentation today allegedly was met with slightly more amenable ears. Both Robert Kraft (New England) and Stephen Jones (son of Jerry, Dallas) said kind things about the move, and Grubman described Davis’ latest contribution as “significant progress.”

So why the newfound nice-playing? The time for leaking that has not yet come, but we know this much:

They have more control over Davis by dangling their votes before him in a quid pro quo arrangement than if they told him no on Vegas.

You see, the league has bollixed the California situations from the start and is paying for the impetuousness, love of spur-of-the-moment deal-making and kicking the can down the road whenever possible.

By not approving the Carson deal that would have twinned the Chargers and Raiders, they punted one can in support of another (the Rams), only to find out that the Rams do not hold near the local sway that officials or media thought they did. Now their belief that Los Angeles can handle two teams has transmogrified into a fear that it may not even bother with one. Worse, they fear that the team best positioned to be that team is the Raiders -- the team they least wanted there.

But after deciding on the Rams, they threw relocation lifelines to both Spanos and Davis that they are now fearful one will take. And if Spanos doesn’t exercise his option (unlikely, though not out of the question), Davis could exercise his.

And with that as backdrop, suddenly Las Vegas looks a whole lot better.

Some credit goes to Oakland’s decision to outsource the stadium to Fortress, and some goes to the Rams being a drab and awful 4-12 team in a town owned by the Lakers and USC football, but the owners get to take center stage here. By playing Spanos and Davis in 2016, they now get to be played by them both in 2017. What goes around comes around, and like Mark Cuban said a year ago, hogs get slaughtered.

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Apparently they're playing in a 27K seat LA soccer stadium next year.

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