The story is that the NFL gave the Chargers the option to move to Los Angeles.

The deal available to the team is supposedly so good a half-dozen or so other team owners would be tripping over themselves to take it if available.

Sometimes, though, one billion plus one billion doesn’t equal two billion.

Maybe. Who knows?


This story just stinks. And for San Diegans, it is no longer the sad, woe-is-us kind of stink.

It’s rank, disgusting. Make a face, cover your nose. Shake your head, get angry. That kind of stink.

But you know the effect when a foul odor finally clears. The air seems cleaner than before.

Maybe that will happen here.


No, there is not news about California voters suddenly becoming more enthusiastic about public financing. That remains the biggest obstacle to San Diego retaining the Chargers. The purpose herein is simply to talk about what remains possible and suggest it might even be probable.

The immediate word from last week’s NFL meetings, while the knife his fellow team owners stealthily shoved in Dean Spanos was still causing him to walk funny, was that the Chargers were taking some time to assess the proposed partnership with the Los Angeles Rams. It wouldn’t take long, so many sources said that night and the next day in Houston. That talk intensified last weekend. When the sides began meeting Monday, it was supposed to be the start of a whirlwind affair consummated with the result being even poor Deno would be luxuriating in a bed of cash alongside Rams owner Stan Kreonke in Inglewood.

We’ve heard nothing since.

In the meantime, there has been a backlash in the Los Angeles and national media against the Chargers infringing on the Rams’ birthright. While in San Diego, a continued swell of devotion.


Hmmmmm.

Like perhaps we’re being played. Like maybe this is playing out just how the NFL wants it to.

This is more than merely a suspicion, though it is not entirely substantiated.

In the course of following this story, you talk to so many people. Too many. You can hear from so many in the know that you end up just not knowing.


But it is perhaps significant that a few of the same folks who predicted for some time that this Chargers contingency would be what the owners’ vote yielded have also called into question the veracity of the league’s intentions regarding Los Angeles being as flexible as currently stated.

The doubts make sense. More sense than the Chargers leaving San Diego.

This has virtually nothing to do with the perception L.A. has no appetite for the Chargers. (That’s a topic far more debatable than some have conveniently proffered. The Chargers absolutely belong in San Diego. And they could very well fail in Los Angeles, but not because the Rams own the place.)

This does have to do with the NFL wanting to do relocation right. In fact, believing it has to do it right.


This is about the managed outcome the league powers always desired. We got swept up recently in some owners talking about getting in a room and arguing. We forgot that even billionaires prefer to do business the old fashioned way, behind each other’s backs.

This is about the NFL not wanting to leave San Diego. Never wanted to. And now, the owners gave Dean Spanos $100 million reasons to consider keeping his team in what many of them concur is, indeed, America’s Finest City. Big business doesn’t give away money for nothing. They told Dean they’d take care of him, and they have. There may be more available.

This is about it being easier than we’ve been willing to believe for the Chargers to stay. If downtown can be done, it should be. As part of a convention center project, it should be cheaper for the Chargers and city. But, too, there are a number of people in the league, from owners to those who work on Park Avenue, who think Mission Valley is a perfectly good plot of land.

This is about the Raiders. Whether the Raiders really would/could come to San Diego, the idea is being pushed by people in the league. That means the NFL wants options – or for us to think it has options.


This is about the next generation of Spanoses wanting to stay in San Diego. A number of people close to the family and the team have opined that has perhaps always been the fallback – that A.G. and John Spanos will be presented as saving the day.

This is about a lot of things, then, that add up to enough muddiness to make us wonder.

Anyone who has been following this closely knows there is a whole bunch we haven’t known. That remains true.

But we should know enough to not be surprised if this is playing out just how the NFL wanted – the backlash, the outpouring of love for the Chargers, the ability for the franchise to save face and make do in San Diego.


Stay tuned. Don’t get sucked in.