Pro Bowl Blahs

Sorry that I've been neglecting this blog for so long. I need this blog for my thoughts that aren't necessarily music or band-related. And now that I have my very own laptop, I can blog pretty much anytime, anywhere. So here's some random blathering that I typed up a few hours ago:

I'm watching the NFL's Pro Bowl today, and while I'm glad that the league decided to return their annual all-star game to Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawai'i, it still doesn't seem all that big a draw for the local audience from what the TV cameras show. Hell, the only reason a lot of those players are even there is because the League is compelling them to be there, by not excusing players from skipping the Pro Bowl for any other reason than injury, legitimate emergency, or for playing in the Super Bowl the following week.

The problem I see with the Pro Bowl is that for the most part, it's the same guys playing the same game at the same time every year. With the system in place for choosing players (a combination of fan and player balloting), it sets it up that once a player reaches the level of being one of the best two or three at their position, inclusion to the Pro Bowl becomes almost automatic for the remainder of that player's career. And after a while, going to Hawai'i right after the conclusion of the season may – as crazy as it seems – get boring for them. So what I think the NFL needs to do to spice up the experience for the players is quite simple: take the Pro Bowl on the road.

So where would you take the Pro Bowl to? Last year, the NFL moved the game to the site of that season's Super Bowl (Miami-Dade, FL), where the response was..... well, it was kinda meh. Let's face it, while Miami is a great place, it's just another NFL city to the players. So here's my thoughts on where the Pro Bowl should go: ANYWHERE BUT AMERICA. Here's some ideas:

First off, Canada makes a good place to start. With large domed stadia in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, the game would be pretty much weatherproof. Other pluses to having a Pro Bowl in Canada would be adding the Canadian Football League's All-Star Game to the Pro Bowl festivities, and having the game in Toronto would also help gauge that area's support for a possible NFL franchise in Hogtowne, be it either an expansion franchise or an existing franchise (with the Buffalo Bills the most likely candidate). The downside would be well, going to Canada in the dead of winter – probably not most players' idea of fun.

The next idea would be Europe, specifically the cities with past association to the NFL's World League of American Football (WLAF)/NFL Europa, with those cities being London, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, and Berlin. Taking the Pro Bowl to Europe would bring a whole new level of excitement to American Football fans in Europe. Oh, you don't think there are NFL fans in Europe? Then why was it that any time I saw Dusseldorf's Rhein Fire playing at home (that being either Dusseldorf's Waldstadion or the aufSchalke Arena in the suburb of Schalke), there was always a huge, and most importantly local crowd there to support the home team? More over, staging Pro Bowls in Europe would give the NFL a barometer towards future expansion in Europe.

But in my opinion, the best route for the Pro Bowl would be taking it Down Under. If you're going to send these players someplace, why not send them someplace they've really never been to? And it wouldn't hurt to have the game in a Southern Hemisphere summer. Why not Melbourne or Sydney? Why not Auckland, New Zealand, or Cape Town or Johannesburg in South Africa? Hell, why not go completely off the proverbial grid and stage a Pro Bowl in Rio? Sao Paulo? Buenos Aires? Why not Tokyo, Beijing, or even Dubai? The NFL has long stated a desire to become a truly global entity, so why not take that next step, and take the Pro Bowl truly global? Why not create a continental rotation, where the 2013 game would be in Melbourne, then the following year in London, Cape Town the year after that, and so on?

Joe's Simple Solution For A College Football Playoff: The Playoffs Themselves ('Bout Damn Time)

Well, I think you've had plenty of time to digest my proposal so far as to how to fix college football. Well, now we're into the real heart of the matter - the actual playoff system itself. So let's begin, shall we?

Now that we have ten conferences, all conference champions earn automatic berths. Using the human and computer polls that currently serve as the basis for the BCS, six wild-card entries fill out the remainder of the National Championship bracket. With this information, I'll now give you a hypothetical field of sixteen teams. First, the conference champions:

PAC-10: Oregon
Big Ten: Wisconsin
SEC: Alabama
Big East: Penn State
Texas Athletic: Baylor
Mountain West: Boise State
Midwestern: Nebraska
ACC: Florida State
MAC: Ohio
Great Atlantic: Miami (FL)

Add Stanford, Iowa, Georgia, Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Clemson as remaining six teams. Okay, the field is set. So how do we get from sixteen teams down to one? Here are my two options First off is a straight single-elimination tournament. Using the same polls that selected the wild-card teams, seed the entire field from #1 to #16. For the sake of arguments, I'll let you seed the teams how you want. For the First Round, let the top eight seeds host the games. From there on out, use the BCS bowl games (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange) plus two others - let's say the Holiday and Cotton Bowls to stage the quarter- and semi-finals, with the National Championship game held say, the Sunday before the Super Bowl.

The overall season schedule could, in theory, look something like this:

2012 Regular Season Start: weekend of Sept. 15-16
2012 Regular Season End: weekend of Nov. 1-2
Ten game season with two bye weeks
First round playoff games: Dec. 22
Quarterfinals: Dec. 29
Semifinals: Jan. 5, 2013
National Championship: Jan. 27, 2013 (presuming that the Super Bowl is held on Feb. 3, 2013)

I take inspiration for my other from the NCAA's method for determining its champion in Men's Ice Hockey. Take those sixteen teams and put them in four regional brackets using the geographically appropriate teams as best as possible, and use the existing bowls for all 15 games. Using those sixteen teams and fifteen bowls, here's a potential bracket:

West Region:
Holiday Bowl (San Diego, CA), 12/22 - Oregon v. Notre Dame
Emerald Bowl (San Francisco, CA) , 12/22 - Stanford v. Boise State
Winners play in Rose Bowl (Pasadena, CA), 12/29
Midwest Region:
Alamo Bowl (San Antonio, TX), 12/22 - Oklahoma v. Ohio
Texas Bowl (Houston, TX), 12/22 - Nebraska v. Wisconsin
Winners play in Cotton Bowl (Dallas, TX), 12/29
Southeast Region:
Independence Bowl (Shreveport, LA), 12/22 - Alabama v. Baylor
Liberty Bowl (Memphis, TN), 12/22 - Georgia v. Clemson
Winners play in Sugar Bowl (New Orleans, LA), 12/29
East Region:
Gator Bowl (Jacksonville, FL), 12/22 - Florida State v. Iowa
Florida Citrus Bowl (Orlando, FL), 12/22 - Miami (FL) v. Penn State
Winners play in Capital One Bowl (Tampa, FL), 12/29
National Semifinals:
Fiesta Bowl (Tempe, AZ) - West champion v. Midwest champion, 1/5/2013
Orange Bowl (Miami-Dade, FL) - Southeast champion v. East champion, 1/5/2013
National Championship:
Championship Game (Arlington, TX) - Semifinal winners, 1/27/2013

"What about the rest of the bowls?"

Simple enough. Teams with at least six wins that failed to qualify for the playoffs are still eligible to play in bowl games not affiliated with the National Championship system, with the bowl games themselves played pretty much as they are now.

So there you have it. A simple system - okay, maybe not as simple as I'd like it to be, but it's workable. The situation as it stands now is unworkable - hell, it's fluid as we speak, with Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 after this season and Oklahoma likely to follow, both schools outraged over the ridiculously unfair advantage created by Texas' deal with ESPN to create its own television channel, the Longhorn Network. The Big 12 may fall apart just as fast as the WAC is, as its elite schools move to the Mountain West, while the MWC loses BYU and Utah this year, and TCU bails for the Big East next year. Most college-football pundits see a future of four sixteen-team conferences hoarding all the power and money for themselves. And that's just not right. Conferences should be about local schools and local rivalries, not continent-spanning, money-spinning behemoths. We already have the NFL for that.

Joe's Simple Solution For A College Football Playoff: The Realignment

Well, it took a little time, a little horse-trading, and a little hand wringing. But I figured out how to whittle down 120 schools in eleven conferences (not to mention those four pesky independents) to 100 in ten. So let's start with the easiest conferences to rejigger, or as I called them.....


The Easy.


Pacific Athletic Conference


Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, California, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State


This was the easiest of all. Ten schools, five natural pairings. The way it has been for 30 years-plus now. The PAC-10 has become the PAC-12 now, adding Utah and Colorado to the fold, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Looking at what they already had, if they were going to add two more schools, why not pick schools in the same state that already have a natural rivalry? The most logical candidates in my opinion would've been Nevada and UNLV. The SI issue I talked about in the last post described the PAC-10 as 'trapped in amber.' Who says that's such a bad thing?


Big Ten Conference


Wisconsin, Ohio State, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Minnesota, Iowa


Once again, tradition reigns. A conference calling itself the Big Ten should only have ten teams in it, right? Not eleven, not twelve. No 'Legends' and 'Leaders' divisions, either. Isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard? So adios to Penn State and Nebraska, we'll see them again later, when things get a little complicated.


Southeastern Conference


South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana State, Auburn, Mississippi State, Mississippi


More tradition here, with only minimal pruning. Arkansas has never really fit into the SEC in my opinion, and jettisoning Vanderbilt means only a loss of an easy win and combined conference-wide GPA scores.


After that, things get a little..... complicated. In fact, some of this is all new. Here come the conferences that were....


The Not-so-easy.


Big East


West Virginia, Pittsburgh, South Florida, Syracuse, Connecticut, Louisville, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Boston College, Penn State


I told you that you'd see Penn State again. In my opinion the Big East is one of the prime offenders in all of college athletics. 'Super-conference' doesn't even begin to describe them. In 2012, Texas Christian enters the Big East - in all sports. How wrong is that? One the one hand, while the Big East is trying to expand its football presence (the conference is trying to persuade Villanova to move its football program up to D1A as well), the addition of TCU to the conference makes seventeen member schools. Seventeen! That's just too damn many, folks. And besides - how is Fort Worth, Texas 'east?' No sense whatsoever. Dropping Cincinnati and adding Penn State and Notre Dame is just so much easier.


And what do mean, 'Notre Dame should always be independent?' Fine with me, if they want to play in D2, or maybe the CFL. Besides, Notre Dame competes in all other major sports as a member of - wait for it - the Big East.


Texas Athletic Conference


Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, Houston, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian, Rice, Texas-El Paso, Oklahoma


This conference makes geographical sense. And should that retard Rick Perry take his ball and go home and Texas secedes from the Union, they could all go pro. Yeah, Oklahoma isn't in Texas, I know. But I don't want to break up the classic rivalries if I don't absolutely have to.


Mountain West Conference


Boise State, San Diego State, Utah State, San Jose State, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, UNLV, Fresno State, Brigham Young


The funny thing is, I think this is what the Mountain West wanted all along. This is pretty much the MWC as it will stand in 2012, albeit with Colorado State and the Air Force Academy out and BYU back from the wayward path of independence. While it was surprising to hear that BYU decided to take its football team independent, they do have something of a precedent for doing the unexpected: BYU's men's soccer team doesn't even play in the NCAA - instead, they play in the United Soccer Leagues' Premier Developmental League, the lowest tier of the US professional soccer pyramid.


Atlantic Coast Conference


Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Maryland, Wake Forest, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Duke


The only reasons the ACC is relevant in D1A football are FSU and Virginia Tech. This is a basketball conference plain-and-simple, and nobody is going to miss Boston College (back where they belong in the Big East) or Miami-FL (who knows where they could wind up - if they even survive past this year, with all that's being said about them) all that much.


Now things get really weird. Forty schools , thirty spots left: Who? Will? Survive?


The Weird.


Midwestern Conference


Tulsa, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Colorado, Nebraska, Arkansas, Wyoming, Colorado State


This is where the clusterfuck really starts, with teams from four existing conferences merging into one new one. It's not like these are the dregs of the sport, the bottom of the proverbial barrel. But the Pokes up in Stillwater need a new rivalry game after I sacrificed the Bedlam Game for the Red River Rivalry, and the Golden Hurricane should do nicely. Adding Tulsa, Arkansas and Colorado State to the remains of what was once the Big Eight would make an interesting conference, though.


Mid-American Conference


Ohio, Akron, Miami (OH), Kent State, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, Toledo, Northern Illinois, Ball State, Memphis


I probably could've gotten away with calling this the 'Ohio Athletic Conference', with six of the ten teams in the Buckeye State. The Bearcats of Cincinnati would dominate this conference, but at least it would a fairly easy travel schedule for everyone.


Great Atlantic Conference


Miami (FL), Tulane, Vanderbilt, Southern Mississippi, Central Florida, East Carolina, Marshall, Alabama-Birmingham, Temple


Yeah, this is the bottom of the barrel. But it's still not too shabby, though the issue of which team would dominate this conference would only be decided if and when Miami gets through the latest allegations of improper payments to players. Which I don't think it will, so the Hurricanes get to rebuild in the last stop before 1AA. Still, there are a lot of teams here with histories of pulling off the big upsets here, so I wouldn't sleep on this conference come playoff time.


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So there's your hundred teams in ten conferences. Here's who got left out, and why:


Army, Navy, Air Force:


Patriotism aside, if you're that busy training the leaders of tomorrow, why bother with major-college athletics? Aside from a few seasons here and there, the service academies haven't been relevant since Army tore up the gridiron back in the 1940's with Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard. You're not going there to play football, you're going there to learn the fine arts of leading men into battle. If you must play football, drop down to D2 or D3, wherever the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies play.


Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan:


The only relevance that these schools have is that they've traditionally composed the bulk of Michigan's non-conference schedule. Enough said.


Hawai'i:


It's all about the money for the Warriors and Wahines. UH has the highest travel budget in all of college sports. Allow me to explain....


Get up at an ungodly hour in your dorm in Honolulu. Take the team bus to the airport. Fly to Los Angeles - five and a half hours. Wait how long for the connecting flight to Dallas? An hour at least? LA to the Metroplex - another two-and-a-half hours. Pile into the charter buses now, flying direct is too damn expensive. Four hours and change later, the buses pull into Ruston, Louisiana. The team got up at 3:00am for the flight, and left Honolulu at five, but after crossing four time zones in thirteen-plus hours of travel, the Warriors finally come to a stop in Louisiana at 10:00pm Central Time......


Now that only happens every other year for the football team. For most UH teams that compete in the Western Athletic Conference, they do it every year. When every road game requires a minimum of five to six hours in flight, that's just too damn much.


Idaho, New Mexico State:


Small, isolated, out of the way. That's about the only things Moscow, Idaho and Las Cruces, New Mexico have in common. Oh, and they also have universities playing in the WAC. NMSU has at least been there a while, but Idaho only got into D1A football a few years ago, and their stadium is still too small to qualify as a sufficient D1A venue under NCAA standards. How do I know this? When Idaho entered the process to prove that they could draw big enough crowds to meet D1A's minimum standards, they didn't play their home games in Moscow. Instead, they packed up the show and drove seven miles west, to play their games at Washington State's Martin Stadium - the smallest stadium by far in the PAC-10/12, but still more than twice the capacity of the ASUI Kibbie Dome back in Moscow. And the most damning thing for the Vandals? Want to know their first stop in D1A football? The Sun Belt. Case closed.


And what does New Mexico State have that should keep them in D1A? Aside from great chiles...... not much. Enjoy playing Texas State and Sam Houston State in 1AA. You might actually win once in a while down there. And last and least......


Buffalo:


Sorry folks, but the Bisons are just the last folks to the party, the new hires if you will. Lack of seniority sends them back where they belong.


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So there you have it - ten conferences, one hundred teams. And now for my next trick, I'll actually explain how the playoff system works - easily!

Joe's Simple Soultion For A College Football Playoff

Just after I got back from my most recent trip to Nevada, I got my latest issue of Sports Illustrated, the big college-football preview. And as I look over the latest stories of what teams are moving to what conferences, where the money is going and where the power is focused, I came to the realization that college football is a steaming pile of crap. For all intents and purposes, the season is already pretty much over for about 50 of the 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision (a stupid a name as it gets), as they have absolutely no shot at even getting a sniff at the still-fictitious National Championship, because they operate beyond the six largest conferences, which quite literally control the Bowl Championship Series, effectively locking out those 50 or so schools from competing.

So I said to myself, 'how would I fix it?' So here's my simple, cold-blooded solution to creating a fair, straight-forward system to naming a national champion.

1.) Limiting the number of teams

Remember that I said there are 120 schools participating in the FBS.... fuck it. It's Division 1A. I fucking hate that stupid name. Now where was I? Oh yes. 120 schools, competing in eleven conferences, with four independent schools (Notre Dame, Army, Navy, now joined by BYU). That's about twenty too many. So they've got to go. First off, it's time to take off the belt. As in the Sun Belt Conference. While that conference has generated some good players in its brief tenure in 1A, its nine member schools are aboard the 1A train for little more than meals and quarters, so they're gone. That leaves eleven teams left to cut, and that can be done by culling the bottom-feeders from the remaining 'mid-major' conferences (Western Athletic, Mountain West, Mid-American, Conference USA), and reorganizing the 100 remaining teams in to ten ten-team conferences.

2.) Simple scheduling

These ten conferences will all play simple ten-game schedules, playing all nine conference foes as well as one non-conference game. Five home games, five road games. Simple, no? And there will be no games scheduled against non-D1A schools. No more cupcakes. And no more independent schools, either. If you're not in a conference, you're not playing in D1A any more, simple as that.

3.) Simple playoff system

After the ten-game regular season is over, the ten conference champions are joined by the best six remaining teams as determined by computer rankings. The sixteen teams are then seeded by those same computer rankings. The first round of the playoffs takes place on the home fields of the top eight seeds, while the quarters, the semis, and the final all take place in the major bowl games, like the Rose, Sugar, Orange et al.

The counter-argument to a playoff system has been the excuse of players playing too many games, especially when the academic calendar puts semester finals during bowl season. I call bullshit on that. Teams in the largest conferences can play as many as fourteen games a season already, between a twelve-game regular season, conference championship and bowl game. My system would put no more strain on players than what currently exists.

And what about the rest of the bowls? Keep 'em! Maybe even arrange them into a football version of the NIT. Some bowls may not survive, since there may not be as many bowl-eligible teams left out there for them to pick from. But we've all seen shitty bowl games between mediocre teams and scratched our heads at the thought of it, so maybe a few less bowl games isn't such a bad idea.

4.) Yes, promotion and relegation

The simple fact is that college football expanded like it has because of the expanding pool of money being offered to the NCAA, the conferences, and to individual schools themselves, in the form of television revenues. Where do these teams come from? From 1AA conferences, of course. The WAC has continually raided the 1AA Big Sky Conference for talent (Boise State, Nevada and Idaho), and will likely do so again after Nevada, Hawai'i, and Fresno State join Boise State in the Mountain West, with 1AA powerhouse Montana likely the WAC's first target in an attempt to stave off irrelevancy and effective banishment from 1A. (NOTE: Under current NCAA rules, for a conference to be recognized as 'official', it must have at least eight members - the departures mentioned above will leave the WAC with only five member schools) And then there's the Sun Belt - entirely lifted from 1AA.

But why not give those schools a chance to move up? Here's my idea: Of the ten last-place finishers, the worst of the worst, number 100 of 100, will play the 1AA champion from a conference in the same region in a promotion/relegation game, with the winner going to 1A, and the loser going to 1AA. Once again, simple as that.

I know, you probably hate my idea. But I don't care. This is my blog and mine alone, so therefore it's my opinion and mine alone. Don't like it? Start your own blog and tell the world what your opinions are. Over the next few days, I'll come up with new conference alignments, and even altogether-new conferences, and I'll explain my reasoning for moving what teams where.

Who Wants To Move To LA?

Another story I came across just in the last few minutes: The Anschutz Entertainment Group claims to have been in contact with five NFL teams about the possibility of moving to their proposed stadium in Los Angeles. For the record, those teams are Minnesota, San Diego, Oakland, St. Louis, and Jacksonville. AEG CEO Tim Leiweke went so far as to suggest that AEG would go so far as to buy a majority stake in a particular NFL franchise and buy out their existing stadium lease in order to facilitate the move.

AEG, and in particular its founder Phil Anschutz, they do have a small place in my heart. AEG was part of the original investment group that founded Major League Soccer, and to this day they own the LA Galaxy and maintain 50% ownership of the Houston Dynamo. At one point in time AEG maintained four MLS clubs, and the league may not have survived if not for Anschutz's largess. Their myriad of sports-related investments includes outright ownership of the NHL's Los Angeles Kings (and its entire minor-league system), several hockey clubs in Europe, and several arenas and stadia in Europe, and interests in the LA Lakers and Sparks as well as the UFL's Hartford Colonials and Danish soccer club Hammarby IF. So they know what they're doing when it comes to running pro-sports teams, and I'm pretty sure they'd make whatever NFL franchise they owned or otherwise persuaded to move to La-La Land a success.

But AEG isn't the only entity trying to bring the NFL back to LA. While AEG plans to build a 72,000-seat stadium in downtown LA as part of its 'campus' (which also includes the Staples Center arena), a rival development is in the works fifteen miles east of LA, in the City of Industry. There, warehouse magnate Ed Roski leads a group attempting to build a 75,000-seat stadium for a prospective NFL franchise. To me, this group seems a little..... quixotic, as they probably don't have the sheer financial muscle AEG has to not only build the stadium, but to also purchase a franchise to inhabit such a stadium.

But let's focus on AEG right now. They say they've spoken with five different NFL franchises, but which would be the best fit for them? Let's start with the teams that actually have history there first:

St. Louis Rams: This actually came as a surprise to me, that they'd actually want to move back to LA, which wasn't even the team's birthplace (the Cleveland Rams moved to LA in 1946) to begin with. The Rams won a Super Bowl in St. Louis, and while their current stadium (the Edward Jones Dome) isn't the newest thing in town any more, but it's been kept up nicely over the years and remains a good NFL-caliber stadium. I'd have to rate the possibility of the Rams returning to LA as 'doubtful'.

San Diego Chargers: This club actually started out as the Los Angeles Chargers of the old American Football League before moving down the coast to San Diego, and while the Spanos family have bitched and moaned about Qualcomm (formerly Jack Murphy) Stadium, and publicly pondered moving back to LA, they have no interest in selling any part of the club to anyone, so I'll rate this one as 'doubtful' as well.

Oakland Raiders: Two words - no, three: Al Fucking Davis. Who would be crazy enough to deal with a guy who looks more and more like Emperor Palpatine with each passing day? I've spoken to a lot of Raider Nation types over the years and even the craziest, most hardcore Halloween-on-Sundays Raiders fan has said to me that they can't wait for Davis to kick the bucket so somebody with a fully-functioning brain can run the team. And considering that last I heard, Davis' lawsuit against the NFL for trying to block the team's move back to Oakland from LA is still ongoing - for over a decade now - you'd have to be out of your gourd to deal with them. Rating: "oh, hell no". Let's just hope that Davis doesn't try to issue Order 66 on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.....

Minnesota Vikings: As of this moment, the current lockout of the players by the NFL had better not end soon, because if it did, the Vikes might not have a stadium to play in. I'm pretty sure you've all seen the rather dramatic video of the Minneapolis Metrodome's roof collapsing under the weight of several feet of snow. They're still working on fixing that roof even as we speak. The Vikings wound up finishing their home schedule at the University of Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium, which is not only smaller than the Metrodome, but outdoors as well. But while Vikings owner Zygi Wilf has been pondering relocating the Vikings for years, it turns out that TCF Bank Stadium was designed to be easily expandable to a capacity suitable for the needs of the Vikings. And considering that domed stadiums are slowly going the way of the dinosaur, I foresee outdoor football in Minneapolis on Sundays as well as Saturdays. This one gets a 'doubtful' rating. Which leaves us with.....

Jacksonville Jaguars: I've always been struck by one thing about Jacksonville: how the hell did they ever get a team in the first place? I'm sure Jacksonville is a fine place, and they've always had a big-ass stadium there in the Gator Bowl, but they never struck me as the stereotypical NFL market. While Jacksonville isn't the smallest city to have an NFL franchise (Green Bay has a population barely over 100k), it is most certainly one of the smallest markets in the NFL in terms of total metropolitan population (excluding Green Bay, natch). And Jacksonville is surrounded by other NFL teams within a reasonable drive (Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Miami), not to mention surrounded by traditional-power college teams (Florida, Florida State, Georgia and Georgia Tech). Jacksonville has been the traditional host of the annual Georgia - Florida football game ("The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party") as part and parcel of the city's passion for college football. And attendance for Jags games has steadily declined in recent years as the team has been stuck in mediocrity for several seasons. And like Minnesota and San Diego, Jags owner Wayne Weaver has publicly stated that moving the club is a distinct possibility. And with no other real options in sight for the club......

I'd say the best bet for moving to LA would be the Jaguars. San Diego's ownership won't sell, St. Louis' situation is nowhere near as bad as it may or may not seem, Minnesota has better options available, and who in their right mind would deal with Al Davis? The only issues left are timing, and who would own the team. Would AEG convince Weaver to move, or just buy the Jags outright? Would they move the team immediately, and have the Jags play in the Rose Bowl (also owned by AEG) until the new stadium is complete, or leave the Jags in limbo for a few seasons while the new stadium is under construction. I would think the best situation would be to move the Jags ASAP and put them in the Rose Bowl until a new stadium is ready, because I seriously doubt Jacksonville fans would pay for Jags tickets fully knowing that the team wouldn't be staying for much longer. Not to mention that any remaining difficulties AEG might be having getting the permits and clearances to build their new stadium would likely vanish once a tenant has been confirmed for it.

There is one last variable to bring into consideration when it comes to bringing the NFL back to the LA metro, though: the fans themselves. Fact is, LA was never all that excited about the NFL for most of the time. Sure, the Raiders were kinda.... fashionable during their stay in LA, but since then there just hasn't been that overwhelming clamor to bring the NFL back to LA since the Raiders and Rams left. In fact, when real-estate mogul Ken Behring attempted (and briefly succeeded) to move the Seattle Seahawks to Anaheim, the response from LA sports fans was overwhelmingly.... meh. The Los Angeles Times ran a poll on fan excitement of various LA Metro teams shortly after the Seahawks moved, and they finished eleventh, if I remember correctly.

So the only certainty in all this is uncertainty. But I think there's enough information floating around that I'll make this prediction: in 2015, there will be NFL football in Los Angeles. And it'll probably be the Jacksonville Jaguars moving to LA. Sorry, Jacksonville. It sucks losing a team - I'm still bitter about the Sonics being stolen off to Oklahoma City, and there are probably a few old-timers that are still pissed off about losing the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee. Seattle fans are expert in dealing with this issue. But look at the bright side - the Gators, Seminoles, Bulldogs, Yellow Jackets - they'll never move.