As Carson and Inglewood continue to race for the right to become the next location of a Los Angeles-area NFL stadium, the NFL won’t be declaring a winner for a while.
Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times reports that the league likely will wait at least six months before deciding which plan to support.
"[W]e’re not planning for a vote in May or any time soon,” NFL executive V.P. Eric Grubman told Farmer. “We have a process. It’s deliberate. There are steps that need to be taken, and I think that’s much more likely to be later in this calendar year at the soonest.”
It’ll be much later. As in as late as possible. Picking a stadium proposal will mean approving one or more franchise relocations, since the Rams have locked in to the Inglewood location and the Chargers and Raiders hope to play in Carson.
If that happens in May or October (the months for the next two ownership meetings), one or two teams will spend an extended stretch as a lame duck. That’s why the best approach will be to take up the issue at the ownership meeting in December, and to delay announcing anything until the teams that would be moving have played their last home games of the season.