Immediately upon being approved to move to Las Vegas, Raiders owner Mark Davis said his team could still stay in Oakland for up to three seasons.
But if things get weird next year in Oakland, they figure to have options.
According to Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News, the possibility of the Raiders playing a year or so in San Antonio before their new stadium in Las Vegas is built in 2020 shouldn’t be ruled out.
San Antonio has been perfectly willing to be a host (or a stalking horse) in the past, and their flirtations with the Raiders have been overt. They have a ready made stadium in the Alamodome which has hosted the Saints after Hurricane Katrina and Cowboys training camp often.
The Raiders have team options to play in Oakland’s existing coliseum in 2017 and 2018, and 2019 is to be determined. But if the reaction is bad this season — and there’s at least some early political grandstanding to suggest it might — Davis might not want to hang around for another year of being ignored or worse.