2020 NFL Off-season

We should address this statement, because it’s false.

The two markets that were supposed to come out ahead in the NFL’s 1993 expansion were Charlotte and St. Louis. The St. Louis group was the one with Walter Payton as its public face, but the original money guy turned out to not have the money needed. The NFL awarded the first expansion franchise to Charlotte and then said it would announce the second 30 days later — a blatant attempt to keep St. Louis, which had Roger Goodell’s support, in the driver’s seat.

All the king’s horses, all the king’s men, and even Enos Stanley Kroenke’s wife’s Walmart billions weren’t enough to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Thirty days later, Jacksonville became an NFL city.

St. Louis native James Orthwein had purchased the Patriots in 1992 to resolve a debt Victor Kiam owed him and tried to move the Patriots to St. Louis with the Stallions branding in time for the 1994 season. He failed because Robert Kraft owned Foxboro Stadium and wouldn’t let him out of the lease and basically forced Orthwein to sell the Patriots to him.

The Baltimore Bombers weren’t anywhere close to being a finalist — Jacksonville’s plan to demolish the Gator Bowl and build Municipal Stadium on that spot was than Baltimore’s plans to build a new stadium eventually, maybe — so Baltimore had to steal Cleveland’s football team. At least they changed the nickname.

 

Others disagree with the assertion that Baltimore had no shot. From the NYT:

In a totally unexpected move, the National Football League awarded an expansion franchise today to Jacksonville, Fla., a city that only last summer dropped out of the bidding and as recently as a month ago was considered a long shot behind St. Louis and Baltimore.

The new team, named the Jaguars, and Charlotte's Carolina Panthers, voted in five weeks ago, will begin play in 1995 as the N.F.L.'s 29th and 30th teams.

Jacksonville becomes one of the league's smallest cities and its second-smallest television market. But its addition strengthens the N.F.L.'s presence in the attractive Southeastern market, with three teams in Florida -- Jacksonville joins Miami and Tampa Bay -- as well as Charlotte, Atlanta and New Orleans.

"It became clear to the committees," N.F.L. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said, "that the Southeast has become a tremendous area for expansion."

Jacksonville beat out competing bids from Baltimore (with three groups), St. Louis and Memphis. St. Louis was believed to have been the favorite, although Baltimore seemed to make great strides when its third ownership group entered the picture two weeks ago. But league officials insisted all along that there was no favorite.

 

Baltimore Sun, 10/26/1997:

In a letter to Tagliabue on the eve of the expansion franchise vote by team owners, Cooke announced he would build his stadium at Laurel - just 15 miles south of Baltimore. And, he noted, 52 percent of his fans were from Maryland. Maryland leaders pronounced the move a ploy and predicted, correctly, that no stadium would be built in Laurel.

Tagliabue read Cooke's letter to the expansion committee as the members gathered to vote in a Chicago hotel. The committee, including then-Browns owner and current Ravens owner Art Modell, backed Tagliabue's recommendation and awarded the new franchise to Jacksonville, Fla., a city that had dropped its bid and then rejoined the race a few weeks before. (The commissioner said he was drawn by the growth of the Sun Belt; but a lawyer for the league admitted this month in a lawsuit in Missouri what Baltimore suspected: the league's first choice was St. Louis, and it even delayed awarding the franchise to give the city time to get its application together, which it failed to do.)

 

Does the Washington shit show deserve its own thread?

 

Maybe or maybe not, but there is one.

 

This seems like peak NFL and peak NFLPA.

 

They vote Snyder out, they are gambling he does not know how filled their closets are with skeletons.

 

Once you're out, you're out. Ask Victor Kiam. As Chris Berman says, "nobody circles the wagons like the NFL owners." Once gone, Snyder's credibility, not high now, is zero on the Kelvin scale.

 

Less than two years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...1564f4-c2a4-11e8-a1f0-a4051b6ad114_story.html

 

If they kick out Snyder, they're coming for Jerry next. And they won't be coming for Jerry. Danny Boy will survive.

 

Interesting that all three of those cities, sort of, ended up with NFL teams within a couple of years anyway.
I know the Oilers moved on from Memphis, but Tennessee got a team.

 

The NFL does have a pretty good situation when we get past the Trumpandemic. A total of 32 teams is perfect.