The NFL regular season ended last Sunday. The NFL Playoffs got off to some boring blow out action for three games, and one game to remember for a long time in Phoenix, AZ.
Here in California (the lost coast for football in America), the big pigskin news finds Pete Carroll leaving the University of Southern California for the Seattle Seahawks. As I write this blog post there is no official word yet that the deal has been done, but enough chatter from every outpost of football conversation to suggest the deal is done. For years Carroll has always maintained he was not interested in going back to the NFL unless he was granted the type of control over a team he currently enjoys at the college level. However, times and circumstances can change a dynamic. Like NCAA violations that put your program in big jeopardy. The USC program over the past several years has been on the NCAA radar for Reggie Bush allegations, just had their basketball program bulldozed by the O.J. Mayo affair, and must deal with the Joe McKnight SUV episode.
The intriguing issue regarding Pete Carroll, and his potential new job in the NFL, is the Rooney Rule. This is the NFL Affirmative Action Clause, which stipulates minority candidates must always be interviewed for any open coaching slot among the NFL's 32 teams. Teams do not have to hire a minority candidate, but they always have to interview one. In this case, the one guy appears to be the Minnesota Vikings Defensive Coordinator, Leslie Frazier, as the obligatory minority candidate. How this plays out could make for some interesting chat room discussions over the NFL off-season.
Off-seasons are what passes as interest for the remaining old fart fans, and the fantasy gamblers of pro football in California. I've followed the NFL for more than 50 years and can never recall any lengthier period of time when California mattered so little to The League. The NFL today promotes a small collection of teams in the upper Midwest and Northeast portion of the country. The NFL is no longer a national league. It has become a very regional league. Look at the eight division cumulative season records for the decade.
AFC
New England (112-48) Pittsburgh (103-56-1)
New York Jets (80-80) Baltimore (95-68)
Miami Dolphins (79-81) Cincinnati (68-98-1)
Buffalo Bills (66-94) Cleveland (57-103)
Indianapolis (115-45) Denver (93-67)
Tennessee (91-69) San Diego (85-75)
Jacksonville (76-84) Kansas City (70-90)
*Houston (49-79) Oakland (62-98)
NFC
Philadelphia(103-56-1) Green Bay (95-65)
New York (88-72) Minnesota (84-76)
Dallas (82-78) Chicago (81-79)
Washington (70-90) Detroit (42-118)
New Orleans (83-77) Seattle (82-78)
Carolina (79-81) St. Louis (71-89)
Tampa Bay (79-81) San Francisco (68-92)
Atlanta (75-84-1) Arizona (62-98)
Cumulative records do not tell the whole story, just a part of the story. It is curious to note in this decade that the Colts with the best overall record have only one Super Bowl appearance and victory to show for all the excellence. New England has made four trips to the Super Bowl with three wins to their credit. However New England's best team, and maybe the best team the NFL has ever seen with a perfect record going into a championship game, was beaten by an average New York Giants team. The Steelers have two wins in two Super Bowls this decade, but the Eagles have only made the Big Dance one time and were beaten by the Patriots. The teams in the South and the West have been chumps in both Conferences this decade.
This trend started when Los Angeles lost their pro football franchises back in 1994. That 1994 season was the only time in NFL history when two teams from California met in the Super Bowl for the Championship. The 49ers pummeled the San Diego Chargers 49 to 26 in Miami, Florida on January 29, 1995. With the season done the Rams upped and moved to St. Louis for some quick cash infusion, and the Raiders did the same by moving back to Oakland, and getting a sweet stadium deal done at the Oakland Coliseum Stadium complex. The League gave a reluctant thumbs up to the Rams move back to a former NFL city (St. Louis) thinking the Raiders would stay in Los Angeles. Al Davis, always a contrary poke-in-the-eye-kind-of-guy to the NFL, bargained with a desperate city of Oakland for a bunch of cash and left the NFL without a team in the second largest media market in the nation.
All those glorious California connections of playoff games and East/West, North/South rivalry match-ups have evaporated over the 15 years of NFL silence in the City of Angels. For the most populous portion of California it was lights out, and no young fans to cultivate. The state moved on without the NFL, and the NFL in a snit decided no stadium in California now measured up to Super Bowl standards and told the three owners of California based teams, and every major city in the state, that California was out as a host city for any future Super Bowls. This occurred at the 2003 Super Bowl in San Diego, California. This was the last time a team from California appeared in the Super Bowl. The 2002 season also marked the last time both the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers had a winning record in an NFL season.
Yes, California still has a team in San Diego, but as good as that Chargers team has been these past few years they have made no impact on the national football scene. They still employ a potential Hall of Fame running back, although given where most football writers live and work, and who vote on who gets into the Hall of Fame, LaDainian Tomlinson might not get enshrined until his later years, if at all. The Chargers have an identity problem. Since they are on the West Coast they have no identity.
The winds of change may shifting within the NFL. This is still the bully league, or as Mark Cuban might say the Ugly American Syndrome League , but California still has roughly 35 million to 40 million sets of eyeballs that corporate sponsors want to target and lie to every week. And the lack of competition in the state exacts a toll every year in declining interest out west.
There has been more conversations of an established team moving into Los Angeles these past few months than at any other time in this 15 year absence. Several teams are actually being considered as Angelo possibilities from the Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings, Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, and the Rams or the Raiders again. All this talk has been fueled by the Collective Bargaining Agreement set to lapse after next year. There will be no salary cap for 2010, and major revenue sharing agreements with smaller market teams are set to end this year as well. Teams on the edge could find this set of circumstances the most compelling reason to move to Southern California within a couple of years.
The real caveat to relocation in Los Angeles is the California economy, which has suffered like no other state in the country with tremendous financial losses this decade. California is on the brink of becoming Argentina, with a two class population in shambles overburdened with monstrous debt and no government to govern. The public in this state is also very disinclined to pay for a billionaire's stadium. Some real creative financing will need to come into play on the stadium deal.
I believe the test for a team to move in SoCal soon will be indicated by a teams in the Super Bowl this year. With all the money Jerry Jones spent in building the new Cowboy Stadium I believe the Cowboys are a near certain Super Bowl contestant. If the Chargers prevail in the AFC I think that is the signal the move will be on. If the Colts or Ravens are the match-up against Dallas it will be a big billboard endorsing all quiet on the western front.
Enjoy the playoffs if you can.
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