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The NFL announced early this morning that they are pushing the San Diego Chargers’ decision deadline on a Los Angeles relocation to Tuesday:
The NFL has extended the Chargers' deadline by two days until Tuesday, so won't conflict with playoff game.
— Sam Farmer (@LATimesfarmer) January 11, 2017
This isn’t good news, this is great news.
I haphazardly tried to explain why in today’s Generally Speaking podcast (below), but I’ll try to clean it up here.
- This creates more time for the NFL to get the Raiders to Las Vegas, which would give the Chargers plenty of time to wait until a 2018 vote for a stadium in San Diego.
- It’s a sign that the league is interested in keeping the Chargers in San Diego, which has been rumored but had not yet been confirmed.
- It means that Dean Spanos and the NFL (and the other NFL owners?) are all on the same page about keeping the team in San Diego.
With nearly two years to work out a deal, and everyone on the same page, you would think the Chargers’ chances for a new stadium in San Diego have increased exponentially.
One caveat that I’d like to add, that came out after I recorded, deals with the following...
NfL EVP Grubmant tells reporters raiders have not yet filed for relocation
— daniel kaplan (@dkaplanSBJ) January 11, 2017
If it turns out that Las Vegas was simply a backup plan for the Raiders, and that their heart is actually set on Los Angeles, this gets a lot more messy. Then the league would have to pay off the Raiders (to go to Vegas) and the Chargers (to fund a stadium in San Diego), and they’re not likely to be setting that kind of precedent.