National Football League

Two NFL teams in L.A. for 2016 season actually seems realistic

Published Mar. 24, 2015 10:55 a.m. ET

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As the great band "Three Dog Night" once sang, "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do." 

Well, if you're an NFL fan in Los Angeles, you're really going to love where this is going. 

At Monday's NFL owners meetings in Phoenix, Ariz., New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft gave us his two cents on the league not having a football-playing presence in L.A, saying:

"There might just be one team but I really think, to support the financial commitment of doing the kind of stadium that's necessary in L.A., you need the resources of two teams," Kraft said. "And then, whether it's done simultaneously or not, personally I think it's the best way, it's in a way what happened in New York/New Jersey. They corrected a situation that'd gone on for many years, I think the Jets felt like maybe they were second-class."

Not one, but more likely two teams playing in a city that hasn't seen professional football in 20 years and has seemed to be used more of a bargaining chip than anything else.

The road map Kraft laid out seems to be consistent with the most-recent concept that has the San Diego Chargers and St. Louis Rams moving to L.A. in 2016 to play in an 80,000-seat stadium built at the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood, Calif., owned by Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

The Oakland Raiders could be a player for L.A., too, given their recent stadium proposal in Carson, Calif. The idea of the Rams and Raiders sharing a stadium in L.A. is very, very, very unlikely. It either will be the Rams and Chargers in Inglewood or the Raiders and Chargers in Carson, with the former being the most likely scenario.

During Monday's meeting, via Sam Farmer of the LA Times, executive vice president of NFL ventures and business operations Eric Grubman laid out both Los Angeles-based proposals, which prompted Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to say it's "the most thorough information session I can remember."

"I think there's going to be 1-2 teams playing in Los Angeles next year," New York Giants owner John Mara said Monday.

Given this plays out the way I just laid out, the odd man out, the Raiders, according to NFL Media's Albert Breer, could be headed to St. Louis to play in a brand new stadium the city recently proposed for the Rams, a proposal Kroenke couldn't care less about. While two teams calling L.A. home in 2016 might seem a little bit ambitious, both the Rams and Chargers can leave their respective home cities at the conclusion of the 2015 season.

"I was sad 20 years ago when I came into the league and the two teams moved out of the L.A. market," Kraft said. "Just a very unfortunate thing and I don't think it's good that we've let a generation of fans grow up there without teams. ... It's not good for the NFL and I really believe within the next year we'll have two teams in this market."

With the amount of rhetoric that has been distributed on this topic in recent years, it's hard to take any of this stuff seriously anymore. But let me tell you, Mr. Kraft sits atop of the NFL owners power rankings, a list that only exists in my head, and his tears of sadness are about to rain down on the rest of the league.

All jokes aside, the league finally seems serious about bringing the NFL brand back to one of the biggest markets in the country. If or when a stadium is built, whether it be Kroenke's plan in Inglewood or the Chargers-Raiders proposed plan in Carson, there will be new jobs and new avenues of revenue for a part of the city that used to be home to the Los Angeles Lakers, back when "Lake Show" was the only show that mattered in the city.

A vote won't take place this week, but a vote certainly will need to take place by the time the season begins, to give the moving team or teams enough time to let their current cities know they will be leaving. A successful vote for relocation will need the support of three-quarters of the NFL's 32 owners.

The magic number is 24. But with Kraft, Jones and Mara seemingly in the bag, along with the two owners of the moving teams, only 19 more votes would be needed.

No matter how close the NFL's return to L.A. seems, it's going to feel far, far away until the paperwork for relocation is signed, approved and team packs up and leaves.

The wait won't be much longer, Los Angeles, but you've heard that before, haven't you?

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