Sources said planning by the Rams, Chargers began when the 49ers were forced out of Santa Clara CountyGETTY IMAGES
The NFL has "had communications" with the Rams and Chargers about "safeguarding against a forced move to alternative playing sites in the coming weeks" due to California restrictions, according to sources cited by Charles Robinson of YAHOO SPORTS. The sources said that the steps being taken by the Chargers and Rams "include troubleshooting potential practice and stadium sites outside the state of California." Both teams are said to be "eyeing backup plans that could include the use of another NFL facility in neighboring states." The sources said that the planning by the franchises "began swiftly in the wake of the 49ers being forced out of Santa Clara County, but have also been driven by a ramping up of COVID restrictions at the state and Los Angeles County levels." The NFL "doesn’t want ... a repeat of the messy back-and-forth between the 49ers and Santa Clara County officials, which made headlines last week when the team suggested that it was blindsided by an order banning contact sports for a period of at least three weeks." That "sparked a prickly exchange" between 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and Santa Clara County officials, "who said the team was kept in the loop about potential changes in COVID restrictions" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 12/4).
WHY UNION DIDN'T FIGHT ARIZONA MOVE: PRO FOOTBALL TALK's Mike Florio wrote the NFLPA "could have pushed back" against the 49ers taking all players to Arizona and "keeping them in a hotel indefinitely and possibly for the balance of the season." A source said that the union "ultimately didn’t put up a fight" because the league has "limited rights to move operations in the event of an emergency." The union, in turn, "has the right to ensure that the move is reasonable, and that it meets the standards of existing working conditions" (NBCSPORTS.com, 12/3).
NINERS' HAND WAS FORCED: In S.F., Ann Killion writes people should not "be mad at Shanahan for being protective of his players and his staff." They should "be mad at the NFL for the ridiculous position in which it has put the 49ers." It is the NFL that has "put the 49ers in this situation, with its demented pursuit of the completion of a 16-game schedule." Killion: "With its unwillingness to cancel games or pause the season. ... With its solution to sending the 49ers to a state where virus cases are raging rather than just wait until this long-predicted spike subsides." The NFL "would like you to think that somehow its product, its shield, is impervious to what the rest of the country is suffering." Killion: "When the history books are written about this pandemic, the blind insistence on playing sports as the virus spreads uncontrolled and deaths surge surely will baffle scholars." But in the present, "everyone is just trying to make do" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 12/4).
