Latest On Los Angeles Relocation Talks
3:20pm: The Rams/Chargers proposal pushed by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is on the ballot for owners, Vincent Bonsignore of the L.A. Daily News tweets. However, the proposal that would put only the Rams in Inglewood is NOT on the ballot (link).
1:48pm: The league’s L.A. committee recommended Carson over Inglewood by a vote of 5-1, with Chiefs owner Clark Hunt representing the lone dissenter, tweets Jason Cole of Bleacher Report. According to Cole, Hunt believes that if the NFL relocates to L.A., only one team should move.
1:12pm: The NFL’s meetings in Houston got underway earlier today, with the league’s owners in town to try to work out a resolution for the Los Angeles relocation issue. While Browns owner Jimmy Haslam isn’t in attendance – his wife Dee is there in his place – the rest of the NFL’s owners are reportedly involved in today’s sit-down, including Seahawks owner Paul Allen, who rarely attends league meetings.
According to several reports, the morning session in Houston has concluded, with the Inglewood and Carson presentations having been made during that meeting. Scott Bair of CSNBayArea.com tweets that Disney CEO Bob Iger was the frontman for the Carson presentation, though Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis also participated. That presentation went over very well with NFL owners, per Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Stan Kroenke of the Rams presented the Inglewood plan to his fellow owners.
Multiple reports have suggested that the six-owner Los Angeles committee will recommend the Carson plan over the Inglewood proposal, with Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Daily reporting that the committee has already made that recommendation. Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News (Twitter link) hears that recommendation hasn’t been formally made yet, but it does sound as if the committee is leaning toward Carson.
What does that mean? Well, it’s worth remembering that the day began with only two proposals officially on the table — Kroenke’s Inglewood stadium plan for the Rams, and the Chargers/Raiders proposal for a Carson stadium. Kaplan acknowledges that it’s unclear whether the L.A. committee is specifically recommending the Chargers/Raiders plan as is, or if the committee believes more generally that the NFL should move to Carson over Inglewood.
If a Rams/Chargers partnership, as proposed by Jones, is officially put on the table, it’s possible the committee modifies its recommendation. According to Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link), there are still multiple owners pushing hard for a Rams/Chargers union in Inglewood.
Although a Rams/Chargers team-up in Inglewood may be the preferred outcome for many NFL owners, it remains to be seen whether Spanos will get on board. A source tells Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that the Chargers could get enough votes to resist a “forced marriage” with the Rams in Inglewood. Given all the bridges Kroenke has burned in St. Louis, he may be in Los-Angeles-or-bust mode, which could give the Chargers some leverage to get the Rams to come aboard their Carson project instead, Florio suggests.
49ers Backing Off Hue Jackson Pursuit?
Last week, Bengals offensive coordinator Hue Jackson was viewed as the potential frontrunner for the 49ers’ head coaching job. But with Jackson also drawing legit interest from the Browns and Giants, it sounds like the Niners are backing off their pursuit of the Cincinnati assistant, tweets Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News. Kawakami says the team could double back to Jackson, but for now he appears more likely to land in Cleveland or New York.
[RELATED: Browns pursuing Hue Jackson most aggressively, could make offer on Tuesday]
Michael Silver of NFL Media, who reported earlier today that the Browns are Jackson’s most aggressive suitor, tweets that no teams are out of the running for him yet. Silver suggested a few hours ago that the Niners remained “very interested.”
With Jackson’s Bengals out of the playoffs, the offensive coordinator is free to pursue head coaching opportunities and speak to any team. Now that Adam Gase has joined the Dolphins, Jackson has become perhaps the hottest name on the market — Cleveland is reportedly making a “big push” to land him, though he may speak to the Giants before making a decision. A report this morning indicated that Jackson and the Giants will meet by Thursday morning at the latest.
The 49ers have interviewed five candidates for their head coaching opening so far — Anthony Lynn (Bills), Chip Kelly (ex-Eagles), Dirk Koetter (49ers), John DeFilippo (Browns), and Jackson have all met with the team, though DeFilippo is believed to be targeted as a potential offensive coordinator rather than a head coach.
San Francisco is conducting its sixth head coaching interview today, and it’s perhaps the most intriguing of the bunch, as former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin is meeting with the 49ers. Per Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee, the interview will take place in the New York area, and will be conducted by GM Trent Baalke — CEO Jed York is in Houston at the NFL’s owners meetings to discuss the Los Angeles situation.
As Barrows observes, DeFilippo worked on the Giants’ coaching staff in 2005 and 2006 when Coughlin was the head coach, so the Niners could be contemplating a scenario where they hire Coughlin as their new head coach and DeFilippo as the OC and heir apparent. DeFilippo is meeting today with the Rams about their offensive coordinator job.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
NFL’s L.A. Meetings In Houston Underway
The NFL’s team owners are meeting in Houston this week to try to reach a consensus on the Los Angeles relocation situation, and those meetings are now underway, having begun around 9:00am CT this morning.
Currently, two proposals are on the table: Stan Kroenke‘s plan, which would see the Rams move to an Inglewood stadium, and a Chargers/Raiders plan led by Bob Iger and Dean Spanos, which would result in those two clubs sharing a stadium in Carson. Kroenke and Iger are expected to make presentations today, with the six-owner Los Angeles committee eventually making their own presentation, and a recommendation, tweets Scott Bair of CSNBayArea.com.
However, as Nick Wagoner and Eric D. Williams of ESPN.com outline, those two plans aren’t the only potential outcomes in play. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has put forth a proposal that would involve the Rams and Chargers sharing a stadium, either in Inglewood or Carson, and there are other scenarios that could be discussed today.
Here’s more on the Los Angeles talks, with some sort of resolution potentially around the corner:
- There’s still some hope that a vote on the L.A. situation could happen today, tweets Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. However, there’s no set timetable.
- Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (Twitter link) hears that the L.A. committee is expected to recommend the Carson site to the rest of the league’s owners for approval, and Acee hears the same thing from a source of his own (Twitter link). Cole cautions though that a recommendation isn’t the same as approval (Twitter link). It’s also not clear if the committee’s recommendation would change if a proposal involving a Rams/Chargers union is officially put on the table.
- Kroenke has made it clear that he’s open to a partner in Inglewood, and while Spanos has been averse to that idea so far, a new proposal could be more financially beneficial for the Chargers than the one Kroenke made in 2015, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com.
- Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggests that, with the idea of a Rams/Chargers partnership reportedly gaining momentum, this week’s meetings could come down to a tug of war over whether those two teams should play in Inglewood or Carson.
Coach Rumors: Coughlin, Eagles, Giants
The latest coaching news from around the NFL:
- The Eagles have confirmed (via Twitter) that their interview with former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin has concluded. Coughlin becomes the sixth candidate to sit down with Philadelphia, though one of those six – Adam Gase – has since been hired by another team. Be sure to check out our head coaching search tracker for the full breakdown.
- Meanwhile, Coughlin’s old team in New York conducted a head coaching interview of its own today. The Giants announced in a press release that their meeting with ex-Falcons head coach Mike Smith has been completed. An interview with Bengals OC Hue Jackson will likely be next up for Big Blue.
- The Browns are using Monday to take a step back and regroup on their head coaching search, tweets Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. There are plenty of options on the table for Cleveland, with the club having interviewed seven candidates to date and having been linked to others.
- Veteran wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson is expected to interview for a wide receivers coaching job with the Rams and Dolphins, a source told Adam Caplan of ESPN.com (on Twitter).
Los Angeles Rumors: 1/11/16
3:12pm: A consensus is building within the league for the Rams and Chargers to share a stadium in Inglewood, according to Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times. Multiple league officials and owners not involved with either the Inglewood or Carson proposals have made note of that momentum, with one owner (whose preference hasn’t been previously reported or stated) telling the Times that the Carson plan isn’t even close to being as strong as Inglewood’s.
According to Farmer and Fenno, league insiders think Chargers owner Dean Spanos doesn’t want to have to turn his back on a partner – Mark Davis and the Raiders – but there’s a belief that the issue can be resolved during this week’s meetings in Houston.
While the majority of owners favor a plan that would land the Rams and Raiders in Inglewood, one owner acknowledged that “we just can’t solve all three stadium problems in one fell swoop.” So this week’s discussion will be crucial, as the NFL’s 32 owners debate how to clear some of the hurdles involved in the plan.
11:34am: The NFL’s team owners are meeting in Houston this week to discuss the Los Angeles situation, and in a perfect world, a vote would take place on Wednesday to determine the fate of the Rams, Chargers, and Raiders. However, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, there’s a chance that owners could postpone that vote in order to finalize the details of their preferred outcome.
Florio cites a source with “intimate knowledge of the dynamics” who says there’s a 25% or 30% chance of that vote being postponed, perhaps for a few weeks at most, which means it’s still more likely than not that some sort of resolution is agreed upon in the coming days. But no matter what solution the NFL’s owners decide, there figure to be plenty of roadblocks to overcome, particularly if the league wants to move forward with a new proposal like the one Jerry Jones has reportedly suggested.
As we wait to see what happens in Houston this week, here are a few more details to keep in mind:
- For a Rams/Chargers partnership to work, Chargers owner Dean Spanos would have to overcome his distrust for Rams owner Stan Kroenke, and would have to believe that Kroenke would give the Chargers a fair shot if they play in Inglewood, says Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (video link).
- Additionally, a Rams/Chargers team-up would put the Raiders in an interesting spot. In his previously-linked piece, Florio suggests that Mark Davis‘ franchise would benefit from the deal enough financially that it would be more viable for the team to build a new stadium, presumably in Oakland. However, Cole indicates that Davis and the Raiders may resume their exploration of a move to San Antonio if the team’s L.A. plan falls through. According to Cole (video link), Davis has a parcel of land between San Antonio and Austin that could house a stadium, and Jerry Jones may not have as much leverage to keep another franchise out of Texas if he essentially helped push that franchise out of its L.A. deal.
- Peter King of TheMMQB.com reports a few interesting Los Angeles nuggets in his latest column, writing that the Chargers are “heavy favorites” to move to L.A., and would likely be one of two teams to relocate. According to King, the NFL would allow teams to pay the $550MM relocation fee at a rate of $64.5MM annually over 10 years, which obviously accounts for interest.
- King also weighs in on the issue of the odd team out, suggesting that if the Rams and Chargers move to L.A., the Raiders would be set up with “one of the most golden of parachutes.” As an official familiar with the league’s thinking explains: “Whoever is not going to Los Angeles will be generously taken care of. The league will create a safety net for that team.” If that’s the case, the franchise may not need to create extra leverage by exploring a relocation to San Antonio, as noted above.
Jerry Jones Proposes Los Angeles Resolution
With the league having deemed Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis as delivering unsatisfactory efforts to preserve their statuses as NFL cities, Jerry Jones is pushing for a resolution in advance of Tuesday’s relocation meetings.
The Cowboys owner has submitted a resolution in front of the Houston owners’ summit that calls for a forced Rams-Chargers union in either the Inglewood or Carson sites, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports.
Jones has been a proponent of the Rams relocating to Los Angeles and is pushing for this outcome. Should this proposal come to fruition a
t Stan Kroenke‘s Inglewood site, the Rams will lead a big brother-little brother relationship, Florio offers. However, if the Chargers and Rams come together at the Carson site initially proposed by the Raiders and Chargers, the co-tenants will be on equal footing.
Here is the latest on the Los Angeles relocation pursuit.
- The league hopes for a vote this week to decide the future of the Los Angeles market, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. If that doesn’t occur, sufficient space for a resolution has been cleared for the following week, if necessary to determine what happens regarding these three teams’ desire for relocation.
- St. Louis’ $1.1 billion riverfront Stadium proposal was determined to “lack certainty,” with it calling for $400MM in league aid — more than expected, a source told the Bay Area News Group’s Matthew Artz. With the St. Louis proposal also calling for government approval, signs continue to point toward the Raiders staying in Oakland. Had the St. Louis initiative been viewed as more stable, Artz writes, owners would be more inclined to back the Chargers’ and Raiders’ joint Carson plan. Artz adds Dean Spanos has the most support from the owners and could be receptive to Jones’ aforementioned compromise. Sources continue to indicate the Raiders don’t have the trust from the owners, from a financial perspective, to be one of the teams that move to L.A. While a Chargers spokesperson told the Los Angeles Daily News the franchise remains committed to partnering with the Raiders, former 49ers executive and current Carson project liaison won’t rule out a Rams-Chargers partnership. Although he adds that the Chargers still plan on being based in Carson. “I would say that there is no way the Raiders or the Chargers want to go to Los Angeles and be in Inglewood.”
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Latest On NFL’s Potential Return To LA
A return to Los Angeles in 2016 is looking likelier than ever for the NFL. In a 48-page report distributed Saturday to the league’s 32 teams, commissioner Roger Goodell criticizes the respective stadium proposals in St. Louis, Oakland and San Diego, referring to them as “unsatisfactory and inadequate,” according to the LA Times’ Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno. Further, in the opinion of Goodell, each market had “ample opportunity but did not develop their proposals sufficiently to ensure the retention of its NFL team.” The Rams, Raiders and Chargers agree, having applied for LA relocation earlier this week.
Last month, the city of St. Louis approved financing on a plan to construct a $1.1 billion riverfront stadium. That proposal 
includes $300MM from the league, whose policy is to spend a maximum of $200MM on stadiums. Goodell subsequently called the notion of using $300MM of the league’s money “fundamentally inconsistent with the NFL’s program of stadium financing.” The Rams, for their part, said in their application to move that no NFL team would accept the St. Louis deal, Farmer and Fenno write.
Oakland has not made a formal stadium proposal, on the other hand, while San Diego – like St. Louis – has proposed a $1.1 billion stadium. At $200MM in funding from the NFL, the potential San Diego stadium doesn’t exceed the league’s maximum. The problem is that a public vote to OK $350MM of city funding isn’t scheduled until June. That clearly won’t work, as league owners will gather next week in Houston – Jan. 12-13 – to vote on possible relocation.
The Raiders and Chargers have a proposal to share a stadium in Carson, and the Rams want their own facility in Inglewood. In order for any of the teams to move, they’ll need 24 approval votes from league ownership. Goodell’s report indicates LA is capable of supporting two teams, which ostensibly helps both the Chargers and Raiders. However, the Cowboys have proposed a measure for ownership vote that would see the Chargers head to Inglewood with the Rams instead of Carson with the Raiders, CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora reports (Twitter link). La Canfora adds (on Twitter) that many owners would prefer to see the Rams and Chargers as the two LA-bound teams. However, as Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal points out (via Twitter), Chargers owner Dean Spanos rejected the idea of partnering with Rams owner Stan Kroenke in a letter to the LA committee last month. At least for now, Spanos seems committed to teaming with the Raiders’ Mark Davis.
For any potential LA scenario to come to fruition, all three clubs must sign final economic term sheets for relocation by Monday, per La Canfora (Twitter link).
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Extra Points: Dolphins, Chargers, Lynch, Lions
When reports came out earlier today regarding Adam Gase being hired as the Dolphins head coach, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport tweeted that Bengals defensive back’s coach Vance Joseph was expected to join the staff as Miami’s new defensive coordinator. However, Rapoport later clarified (via Twitter) that Joseph will be a target, but no deal has been finalized. Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald tweets that Joseph has had zero discussions with the Dolphins regarding the position.
If Joseph does end up joining Gase’s staff, he’s expected to hire several notable names. Fox Sports’ Alex Marvez tweets that Bengals linebackers coach Matt Burke, Bears defensive line coach Clint Hurtt, and Cowboys defensive back’s coach Jerome Henderson would presumably join Joseph’s staff.
Meanwhile, Albert Breer tweets that Hue Jackson is scheduled to have his interviews with the 49ers and Browns tomorrow. If he secures any of those head coaching jobs, Breer believes Joseph will be a target to become defensive coordinator (with Mike Solari an option at offensive coordinator).
Let’s take a look at some more assorted notes from around the league…
- The Chargers request to interview Buccaneers defensive line coach Joe Cullen was denied, tweets Fox Sports’ Mike Garafalo.
- Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times gives a list of reasons why it’d be in the Seahawks best interest to move on from Marshawn Lynch (via Twitter): they’d save $6.5MM against the cap, he’s 30-years-old, and he only appeared in seven games this season.
- The Jets, Browns, Texans and Rams are among the teams scouting North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz at today’s FCS title game, according to Tony Pauline of DraftInsider.net (via Twitter).
- Count Gil Brandt among those who are big fans of new Lions general manager Bob Quinn. “He’s not one of these guys that’s known because he doesn’t seek out jobs,” Brandt told Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “But he knows the personnel part of it, he knows the cap part of it. He knows how to make people better at the job they do. You’ll like this guy because … he’s a hustler, and he’s very low-key.”
Latest On Los Angeles Relocation Talks
With the league’s owners set to head to Houston next week to discuss and vote on moving an NFL team to Los Angeles, let’s take a look at the latest on the situation:
- Owners are highly motivated to move a team (or teams) to Los Angeles, write Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times, but that doesn’t mean next week’s meetings will be a cakewalk. Each proposal submitted by the Rams, Chargers, and Raiders has support — but each also has enough detractors to stymie it. The entire situation is uncertain, and the league is hoping that a vote isn’t called for until a consensus is reached. One interesting note: the Times scribes report that whichever team(s) loses out in its bid to move to LA will likely aim to relocate to a city vacated by a club that does get to transfer to southern California.
- The outcome of next week’s meetings are “very much up in the air,” a source familiar with the talks tells Mark Maske of the Washington Post (Twitter link). The source also conceded that he has “no idea” what will happen at the summit.
- The next step in the process for the three teams involved is to agree to and sign the final draft of “certification” papers that they each received today, per Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com (Twitter links: 1, 2, 3). Once each club has signed and returned the documents, the league’s LA committee will make a formal recommendation about one of the projects prior to next week’s meetings.
- One key component to the relocation efforts is that clubs applying to move to Los Angeles are not allowed to sue the NFl after the process is complete, reports Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (Twitter link).
- Cole also reports (via Twitter) that two NFL teams have presented alternate plans that would solve the three-team race. The Cowboys have submitted a plan that likely includes the Rams heading to Inglewood, while another club is to suggest delaying the process entirely (link).
- The St. Louis stadium task force fired back at Stan Kroenke‘s comments about the city, deeming the Rams owner “cruel and unbecoming” in a letter to all 32 teams and the league office. Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal has the details in a TwitLonger link.
Breer’s Latest: Cousins, Bucs, L.A., Titans
In his latest notes column for NFL.com, Albert Breer of the NFL Network takes a closer look at the group of top quarterbacks in the 2016 draft class, before exploring several other noteworthy topics from around the NFL. Let’s dive in and round up the highlights….
- Washington continues to plan on having Kirk Cousins back next season, as has been previously reported. Sources tell Breer that the team wants to lock up Cousins to a long-term contract before the deadline to apply franchise or transition tags to players. But if the two sides can’t work something out by then, Washington is “fully prepared” to franchise its quarterback.
- Having worked in Arizona and observed the relationship between Steve Keim and Bruce Arians, Buccaneers GM Jason Licht would like to create a similar dynamic in Tampa Bay. Licht wants to hire a head coach who “he can challenge and be challenged by, without anyone getting offended.” The ideal candidate for the Bucs would also “instill toughness” and “set a culture,” and those are considered more important factors than whether a coach is offensive- or defensive-minded, according to Breer.
- At this point, among the NFL’s team owners, there are two distinct camps when it comes to the Los Angeles relocation proposals — one camp is focused on the projects, and favors the Rams‘ proposal, while the other camp is focused on the owners and teams involved, and favors the Chargers‘ and Raiders‘ Carson plan. Neither side has the necessary votes, and it won’t be easy to obtain them, says Breer.
- There’s concern within the Titans organization about how often their quarterbacks – particularly Marcus Mariota – have been hit and injured over the last couple seasons. Breer suggests that could be a factor that makes the team shy away from hiring Chip Kelly, since his quarterbacks in Philadelphia were frequently injured as well. Of course, one could argue that those injuries were the result of bad luck and/or poor offensive line play, rather than being coaching-related, but Michael Vick and Nick Foles both went down while playing behind solid lines for the Eagles.
- The Browns‘ head coaching job certainly isn’t considered the most desirable one among the seven that are currently available, but coaches consider it significant to have a direct line to a team’s owner, and Cleveland’s next coach will report directly to Jimmy Haslam, Breer observes.