Owners Leaning Towards Rams/Chargers In Los Angeles
6:29pm: Rams players were told that they could receive word on Los Angeles tonight, Alex Marvez of FOX Sports tweets.
Meanwhile, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’ plane is slated to leave Houston tonight and Ben Volin of The Boston Globe (on Twitter) wonders if that’s a sign that the L.A. decision will come down this evening.
5:21pm: In Houston, owners have cast their votes on two proposals: one which would green light the Chargers/Raiders plan in Carson, Calif. and the other pairing the Rams and another team in Inglewood, Calif. The first vote has not yielded the 24 votes needed for either proposal, as Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times tweets.
[RELATED: Latest On Los Angeles Relocation]
The Rams/TBD pitch came rather close to winning with 20 votes from owners. Meanwhile, a dozen owners voted in favor of the joint Chargers/Raiders plan. Now, the plans will – again – be put to a vote, with the hope that one of the proposals reaches the necessary 75% (32 votes).
On Tuesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones got the necessary support for his Rams/team TBD proposal to be placed on the voting ballot. Meanwhile, a proposal that would only relocate the Rams to Inglewood was taken off the ballot. It appears that Jones has talked many of the league’s owners into a forced marriage between the Rams and Bolts. The Raiders, theoretically, could be that mystery team, but the Chargers have always been viewed as the stronger fit for L.A. than the Raiders. If the Inglewood plan wins out, the key parties involved will have to figure out how to bust up the paperwork binding the Raiders and Chargers together in a proposed L.A. move.
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.
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.
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
Extra Points: Lions, Colts, Broncos, J. Smith
Now that the Lions have hired Bob Quinn as their new general manager, Detroit coaches are wondering if they still have a job, as Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press writes. Obviously, there will be some turnover as a new regime takes over, but two Lions coaches told Birkett they have not been updated as to the status of their employment.
However, the club’s head coach, Jim Caldwell, might be one of the lucky ones, as a Patriots insider tells Mike O’Hara of Lions.com that Quinn is likely to retain Caldwell for 2016. Detroit’s upper management has been adamant that the new GM would get to decide Caldwell’s fate, and while we’ll have to wait for official word, at least one source thinks Caldwell will get to stay.
Meanwhile, while interim GM Sheldon White was thanked in a team statement, there’s been no indication as to whether he’ll revert back to his old position of director of player personnel, tweets Paula Pasche of the Oakland Press.
More from around the league…
- Though the Colts retained some level of stability by keeping both GM Ryan Grigson and head coach Chuck Pagano, the club’s roster figures to see an overhaul, per Mike Chappell of CBS4, who singles out Andre Johnson and Trent Cole as players who are likely to be cut this offseason.
- By being selected second-team All-Pro instead of first-team, Broncos corner Chris Harris missed out on an extra $500K, according to Mike Klis of 9News. First-team recognition would have bumped up Harris’ 2016 salary from $6.9MM to $7.4MM.
- Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith‘s surgery to repair a torn ACL and MCL “went about as well as it possibly could have,” a source tells Brian Hamilton of Sports Illustrated. Smith was expected to a be top-10 selection in this year’s draft, but that stock will obviously be affected by this major injury.
- Had Hue Jackson been offered the opportunity to return as Raiders head coach for a second season in 2012, he planned to make a change at defensive coordinator. His No. 1 choice? Jack Del Rio, who is now ironically Oakland’s head coach himself. “I had him locked in and everything,” Jackson told Mike Silver of NFL.com. “I think we would have worked really well together.”
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.
Extra Points: M. Lewis, Flacco, Smallwood, L.A.
Marcedes Lewis is eligible for free agency this winter, but the Jaguars tight end is hopeful he won’t reach the open market, preferring to work out a new deal that keeps him in Jacksonville, as Mike DiRocco of ESPN.com details.
“You rarely see players play 10 years for one team, let alone finish their career [with the same team], so it’s something that I want to be able to do,” Lewis said. “Hopefully we can get it done before all the other stuff even starts, if it’s possible. … I know where I want to be.”
As Lewis notes, he has spent the last decade with the Jaguars, catching 331 balls for the club during that stretch. Still, it’s not yet clear how serious the team will be about keeping him around going forward, now that Julius Thomas is in the mix. The 31-year-old hasn’t caught more than 25 passes since the 2012 season, and his 16 receptions in 2015 represented his lowest total since his rookie year, way back in 2006.
Here are more Thursday odds and ends from around the NFL:
- Speaking this morning to Glenn Clark of PressBox (link via Justin Silberman of PressBoxOnline.com), Joe Linta – the agent for Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco – was cagey about his client’s contract situation. Flacco is projected to have one of the league’s highest cap numbers, at $28.55MM, but Linta said there are no negotiations ongoing with the Ravens at this point, adding that the veteran QB isn’t in any rush to rework his deal. “I mean, that’s the price of these types of quarterbacks,” Linta said. “Every deal that’s going to be done is going to be in that realm.” Earlier today, GM Ozzie Newsome acknowledged that the Ravens would like to reduce Flacco’s 2016 cap hit, but said the team has a plan to work around it if it remains at $28MM+.
- Big 12 rushing leader Wendell Smallwood changed his mind about staying at West Virginia, and has now decided to enter the 2016 NFL draft, as Allan Taylor of the West Virginia MetroNews writes. Zac Jackson of Pro Football Talk notes that Smallwood will join teammate Daryl Worley in heading to the NFL, despite the fact that the cornerback doesn’t project as a top pick.
- During Wednesday’s team owner meetings in New York, Panthers owner – and Carson supporter – Jerry Richardson was “silent all meeting,” according to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (Twitter link), who wonders if Richardson may be backing down from the joint Raiders–Chargers plan.
- Cornerback Josh Norman is one of the most noteworthy players eligible for free agency this winter – he ranked third in PFR’s most recent free agent power rankings – but he says he won’t think about a new deal until the Panthers are eliminated from the playoffs or win the Super Bowl (link via ESPN’s David Newton). Meanwhile, GM Dave Gettleman admits it’s a “headache” trying to figure out how to keep Norman and all the other potential free agents the Panthers don’t want to lose, but he’s optimistic that the club will figure it out (link via Newton).
Latest On Los Angeles Relocation
The latest on Los Angeles:
- The Rams‘ relocation bid contends that they have the best plan for both the city of Los Angeles and the NFL, as Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno write of the Los Angeles Times write. “The Rams’ Inglewood project presents the league and all of the member clubs with the best opportunity for successful long-term operations in Los Angeles,” the application said. Of course, the Rams are going up against a joint bid from the Chargers and Raiders, who claim that their Carson plan projected to open in 2019 is the best choice. Although the developers at the Inglewood site have long said their stadium would be ready for the 2018 season, the Rams’ application targets 2019 as the proposed start date as well.
- The L.A. Times duo points out that the Rams are looking for more than regular NFL dates to be held at their venue – they also want to host the Pro Bowl, NFL Combine, and other major league events. The Rams also argue that they have the strongest L.A. fan base of the three teams seeking to relocate. That’s a bold claim considering the proximity of Oakland and San Diego.
- The mayor of St. Louis has fired back at the Rams’ comments in the application, as Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com writes. Some highlights of Francis G. Slay’s comments on Twitter include: “I’d rather blame the Rams for an unimaginative offense than for harsh words in a sales document,” and “Blame Kroenke. #kroenkecomplaints.“
- The Coliseum has been ID’s as a likely temporary site until a permanent L.A. stadium is built, but that venue has only committed to hosting one NFL team, Albert Breer of NFL.com tweets. It is possible that the NFL would need a second temporary site in order to bring over a second team.
- Every owner entering meetings in New York City today is adamant about voting next week and not pushing the relocation vote off any further, Kevin Acee of U-T San Diego tweets.