The presentations have been made. The recommendations are in. Let the deliberations begin.
The NFL’s version of a Papal conclave is underway. On Tuesday the Chargers and Raiders made their combined pitch to sell their Carson proposal for a new NFL stadium while the Rams sold their idea and vision for a new facility in Inglewood.
It is going to be incredibly interesting to see what ends up happening because there are several very different, yet equally possible scenarios popping up.
Let’s start with Carson, where Disney CEO Bob Iger led the Chargers/Raiders co-offering. Sources close to Iger say the presentation was well-received and he is adamant that the Carson proposal is a DUAL proposal. Iger believes there will be no splitting up of the Chargers and Raiders, which flies in the face of the other proposal gathering momentum in Houston.
That one comes from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who submitted a plan for the Rams and Chargers to join forces in Inglewood. Iger’s people feel this was simply a last-second Hail Mary from the Inglewood supporters who felt the momentum slipping back in the direction of Carson, and that may very well be the case.
The six-owner committee on Los Angeles relocation officially endorsed the Carson site on Tuesday by a 5-1 margin but those votes are not official when it comes to the final tally. Each of the owners on the committee will have to vote again on the ballot for relocation.
The Rams also made another presentation trying to sell Inglewood but the buzz around Houston is it did not have the same kind of impact Iger was able to generate. Momentum could very swiftly be shifting back to Carson.
Or it could still be with Inglewood and the NFL owners are simply trying to get Rams owner Stan Kroenke to loosen his purse strings and provide extra cash to the Chargers and Raiders, holding the specter of losing out on Los Angeles as a leverage tool.
Or it could be a hung just where neither plan gets the necessary 24 votes. What I do know for certain is the owners of the eight teams who are still alive in the playoffs are getting antsy and want to go back home, so they are pushing for a resolution as quickly as possible.
