News that San Diego and St. Louis wouldn't be allowed to present updated stadium projects to the NFL at the New York owner's meetings in Oct., seemed to bode ill for the chances of either city keeping their professional football teams in place. While that may not be the case - Albert Breer of NFL.com indicates that the league simply feels that the owner's meetings aren't the correct venue for the type of open dialogue necessary to flesh out details of the cities updates - it does point to where the NFL's focus remains: Los Angeles Relocation, for at least one team, likely two. And to hear Breer tell it, the likelihood of the Chargers and Rams making the move to L.A. has increased, possibly leaving the Raiders out in the cold.
"As for where things stand now, the Raiders/Chargers project in Carson is still in the design phase, while the Rams project in Inglewood is expected to have completed construction drawings in about six weeks, which would be the final step before putting a shovel in the ground.
"One thing seems to be certain here: The owners aren't going to leave the Chargers stranded in Qualcomm Stadium (as presently constituted) at the end of all of this."
This doesn't mean that the Chargers are sure to head to L.A. and San Diego will be given an opportunity at some point to update their stadium proposal, but Breer's report, it certainly makes it clear that Spanos' political capital around the league has the other owners pushing for the Chargers to see an upgrade in venue one way or another.
And consider the Rams and owner Stan Kroenke's Inglewood project is nearing finalization before actual groundbreaking, that would seem to put the Raiders chances of jumping ship to L.A. somewhere around slim, if not yet none.
