The NFL today at the league meetings in S.F. plans to tell owners that the period for submitting relocation bids is going to shrink from six weeks, and that the time period could still move up from the current Jan. 1 start date, a source said. The NFL L.A. owners committee plans to meet next month, with a full owners meeting possible in August, as the pace is quickening dramatically in the league's two-decade quest to return to the nation’s second most populous city. Currently, teams have from Jan. 1-Feb. 15 to submit relocation bids. Now, that period will be shrunk, and possibly moved into December. A full owners meeting to vote on a relocation bid would then come early in the new year. The prospective summer owners meeting would largely revolve around the proposed St. Louis stadium, which is further along than the efforts in California. Whether that meeting occurs depends in part on progress in St. Louis, and the recommendation of the L.A. committee. A league source said that if the mayor’s office sees the new San Diego stadium task force proposal as an outline, the league can work with the city. But the source said that if it is seen as a proposal, that is a nonstarter. Meanwhile, the land deal for the proposed Chargers/Raiders stadium in Carson, Calif., closed yesterday (Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer).
SMALLER WINDOW MAKES MORE SENSE: An unnamed NFL official said the decision to move up the relocation window is "good for everybody." The official said, "It's not only good for the clubs. It's good for the league. And frankly, it's better for the home markets to know where they are. If you're going to keep your team, you want to know sooner. If you're going to lose your team, why continue to be aggravated?" In St. Louis, Jim Thomas notes the Rams, Raiders and Chargers "all will be filing for relocation ... barring an unexpected turn of events over the next several months." The league's thinking is that it "won't take six weeks for those three clubs to file for relocation." A brief update will be made today at the NFL owners meeting "by representatives of each of the three home markets," but what is "interesting is that these updates will be made by team officials ... not by local political or civic leaders" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 5/20).
