One of San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s tasks here Wednesday afternoon on the sixth floor of a Park Avenue high rise is convincing NFL owners that his town is an NFL town.

Even if Faulconer & Co. have run out of time to keep the Chargers in their home of 55 years, there are strong indications that San Diego maintains a spot in the league’s hearts and minds and wallets.

Sources, including those intimately involved in the relocation process, have in recent weeks used terms like “crazy,” “stupid” and “brain dead” to describe the NFL’s state of mind were it to abandon San Diego forever. In fact, the general consensus among those sources is that the league would move quickly to fill our Mission Valley (or downtown) void.

Of course, those assessments are delivered with the caveat of the nation’s eighth-largest city actually having an actionable plan.


While the veracity of San Diego’s stadium readiness is debatable and NFL decision makers remain dubious the city can ever deliver public assistance, the mere idea that we have a fallback option is a significant (practically seismic) shift.

Many in and around the league have for years cautioned ominously – and Chargers chairman Dean Spanos certainly wants us to believe – that we will never get another team if the Chargers leave.

But that isn’t necessarily so. Not even close, according to some who would know.

While observers have long proffered that holding open a second spot in Los Angeles is leverage the NFL needs, there is another option the league is clearly giving consideration.


“After (relocation), you’re going to have markets that are available,” Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said. “We’ve seen it before in this league where teams have shifted and restructured. … If someone doesn’t end up in L.A., they may have an opportunity to do something somewhere else.”

This includes a real possibility the Raiders eventually end up in San Diego.

“I’m open to anything,” Raiders owner Mark Davis said recently, when queried about a variety of scenarios.

Multiple sources, in fact, have said Davis has made it known San Diego is an option. Certainly the league noticed when Raiders fans overwhelmed Qualcomm Stadium for their team’s Oct. 25 game against the Chargers.


In fact, concern over the Chargers’ capacity to compel interest in L.A. has become a focal point for those calculating the NFL’s return to the nation’s second-largest market. However, there remains much support for Spanos, who has deftly convinced his fellow owners that he has exhausted options in San Diego.

Rams owner Stan Kroenke argues much the same thing about St. Louis and maintains his Inglewood stadium project will be ready for groundbreaking in December. The Raiders are something of a hanger-on, having teamed with the Chargers on a Carson stadium proposal but being the only team to have recently stated they’d like to remain in their home market.

It is against that backdrop that the league invited representatives of the three teams to NFL headquarters on Wednesday to address members of the L.A., stadium and finance committees.

Along with Faulconer, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and St. Louis businessman Dave Peacock, the head of that city’s stadium task force, will make individual 45-minutes presentations in front of what could be more than half the league’s 32 team owners. Faulconer is joined by San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts and New York attorney Chris Melvin, the lead negotiator for San Diego’s stadium coalition. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is also scheduled to attend. It is not known how much each attendee will participate.


This will be the broadest audience of owners in front of which any of the home markets has made a pitch. Some who will be doing the listening and questioning said they are seeking evidence about the markets’ ability to help facilitate stadium projects should the league decide to postpone relocation in some manner.

Faulconer’s time in front of the owners will include a question-and-answer period. Some who will be in attendance have said they are interested in Faulconer demonstrating his sincerity and determination, as well as the validity of his plan. The audience is already well-versed in the Chargers’ contention San Diego’s stadium machinations are bogus.

There are 17 owners on the three weighty committees, and most are expected to attend. Spanos, Kroenke and Davis will also be in the room.

While NFL officials say it will not be a hostile environment for the mayor, Spanos is expected to be allowed to speak and ask questions. The Chargers, remember, have refused to negotiate with San Diego since late June, and Mark Fabiani, the team’s stadium point man, has fired numerous shots at the mayor while directing almost all his effort on Los Angeles.


Regardless, Faulconer can’t avoid the enemy of time.

The NFL has targeted January as its ideal time to decide which team(s) will — or will not — be allowed to go to Los Angeles in 2016.

The league is committed to negotiating away from a war that at this point would ensue, with Spanos having the votes to block Kroenke and vice versa but neither believed to have the 24 votes required to approve their moving.

Faulconer’s performance Wednesday could sway some undecided owners, others looking for steps to a solution and the league staff helping chart this precarious opportunity.


Every time Fualconer is asked about the possibility of trying to land another NFL, even in seemingly unguarded moments, his response is a smile and rote response.

“I’m interested in keeping the Chargers,” he says.

On Wednesday, he can show San Diego is capable of either.