NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell held his Super Bowl 51 press conference Wednesday afternoon, touching on a number of topics, including his relationship with owner Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots and a possible relocation of the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. He also answered a few direct questions from the local San Diego press. He was asked why the NFL made it so easy for the Chargers to leave San Diego and why the NFL would bail out of 56 years of football in San Diego. Goodell basically dodged the question with the typical “we tried” and it is “not what we wanted to happen”.
Any educated person can see right through NFL commissioner Rodger Goodell’s remarks about San Diego losing the Chargers at today’s NFL press conference. He tried to say all the right things. Sure he said the NFL offered more money than ever ($300 million) to help assist the Chargers get a new stadium built in San Diego. But they all knew that prop C was going to fail. Let me repeat that, they all knew that it would not get the two thirds vote needed and the bottom line is that San Diego fans got played. Just because the citizens of San Diego simply did not want to fund a rich NFL owner, the league made it very easy for Spanos to get out of town to the 12 times larger media market in Los Angeles and potentially much more money for the NFL.
One more thing, Goodell also said at today’s press conference that the Chargers owner even gave it an extra year to decide, but the NFL had put the “cheese in front of the rat” well before the downtown proposal that seemed very rushed and the San Diego mayor was not even there for the downtown stadium presentation (measure C) last year. They had a back up plan all along, it was never about San Diego’s fans. So today, hearing Goodells lame remarks was very frustrating!
It was a total cover up. Face it San Diego, the NFL made it very easy for Spanos to “bail out” and the rest is history. Sure the NFL admitted that they did not want this to happen, but the damage was already done. Remember this, for the last 15 years, the Chargers have tried to get a new stadium built at taxpayers expense, but perhaps Spanos could have funded it himself instead of leaving 56 years of great pro football in San Diego in the dust. Very sad.
In other words, don’t just leave town because the NFL is giving you free rent in Los Angeles. That is the cheese that the rat Spanos decided to take a big bite of. In the end, perhaps the NFL is not only losing the respect it once had, but also losing her integrity as a league. At some point, alienating 300,000 local San Diego Charger fans another 300,000 local Oakland Raider fans simply cannot be good for the league. The NFL loves money (and salt) and that is the bottom line.
The NFL clearly put salt in San Diego’s wounds today at the Superbowl 51 press conference today.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.