With four playoff games over and four more coming, the meat in the postseason sandwich becomes the L.A. Relocluster, a contest that is expected to be finalized on Wednesday in Houston.
Unless it isn’t.
There’s a chance -- one source with intimate knowledge of the dynamics pegged it as a 25-30 percent proposition -- that the owners will opt for a brief delay in finalizing anything in order to allow the details of what could become the preferred solution (whatever that solution may be) to become finalized. Then, after the six members of the Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities and the league office work together to iron out with the Rams, Chargers, and Raiders an outcome, the owners would reconvene to formally adopt that plan.
If that happens, the delay would be very short, a matter of just a few weeks at most. And it would happen only if it appears that a little time, elbow grease, and/or arm-twisting will be necessary to get the solution to at least 24 votes.
That solution could be the Rams and Chargers partnering up in Inglewood or Carson, with the Raiders getting enough money from the transaction to build a new stadium, presumably in Oakland.
The NFL’s assessment of the final proposals from St. Louis, San Diego, and Oakland makes it clear that someone will be moving. The problem is that too many teams suddenly want to move to the same market, requiring the league to work delicately to find an answer that not just 24 but all 32 owners can get behind, with no hard feelings or favors owed or billionaires miffed at the man who presides over the sport.