Goodell: NFL likely would expand to 34 if L.A. lands new team

[EnglishBengal]

[b][b][size=4]Link: [url="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d8268f3b5/article/goodell-nfl-likely-would-expand-to-34-if-la-lands-new-team"]http://www.nfl.com/n...-lands-new-team[/url][/size][/b][/b]

[size=5][b][size=6]Goodell: NFL likely would expand to 34 if L.A. lands new team[/size][/b][/size][list]
[*]Associated Press
[*]Published: Feb. 2, 2012 at 11:55 p.m.
[*]Updated: Feb. 3, 2012 at 01:59 a.m.
[/list]

INDIANAPOLIS -- Commissioner Roger Goodell said if the NFL puts a team in Los Angeles, it's probable the league would expand to 34 franchises.

Appearing Thursday night on "Costas Live" on NBC Sports Network, Goodell said the league "doesn't want to move any of our teams."

"We probably don't want to go to 33" teams by adding just one new team if a suitable stadium is built in the Los Angeles area, Goodell said. Instead, the league would consider adding two. An odd number of teams would pose scheduling problems, including at least one club being off each week, and would create one division with five teams.

There has been speculation an L.A. stadium could house two NFL franchises, although Goodell didn't address that Thursday with host Bob Costas.

Goodell said several issues must be solved in L.A., particularly which of two current stadium proposals is best. He didn't suggest any timetable for the NFL returning to Southern California.

[i]Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press[/i]

[Lewdog]

If the add LA what other city gets an NFL franchise? Do they give Chicago a second team? Like NY has two? Do they give a team to a Canadian city like Toronto? I can't really think of a large city off the top of my head that doesn't have an NFL team.

[EnglishBengal]

Other cities that could be a candidates imo are:

Portland
- a growing city with a basketball team, could house an NFL team

Salt Lake City
- have a basketball team, but geographically would make sense as no teams for miles around in the desert

Toronto
- even though they're close to BUffalo who have a large fanbase their, this move wouldn't surprise me

Columbus
- growing city, already have ice hockey and MLS teams, why not an NFL team, but would it kill the Bengals-Browns rivalry having a 3rd team in ohio

Chicago
- maybe a 2nd team in Chicago, but I doubt that move would wash with that city which has an established fanbase and deep football history already with the Bears

Oakland
- do like they did with the NEW Cleveland Brwons franchise, the original Oakland Raiders move to LA, so Oakland gets a new franchise as revenge

Memphis
- used to house an USFL team back in the day, certainly big enough town to house a franchise, but how sacred is the Titans fanbase across the whole state of Tennessee?

[Bengals1181]

I think one you missed that might be the most viable is Oklahoma City.

[CincyInDC]

no, they're working on stealing the Seahawks.

[Lewdog]

I think Toronto would make the most sense after pondering it a bit.

[Passepartout]

LA needs a new team ever since the last team left in 1995. It has been nearly 17 years. Good for their economy as well.

[Bleeds Orange]

32 teams is a perfect number because it is symmetrical: eight divisions of four teams. Figuring out future schedules is very easy and involves a system that makes sense. Adding two teams would screw all that up. Just move the Rams back to where they belong and leave it at 32 PLEASE.

[Lewdog]

[quote name='Bleeds Orange' timestamp='1329034318' post='1095510']
32 teams is a perfect number because it is symmetrical: eight divisions of four teams. Figuring out future schedules is very easy and involves a system that makes sense. Adding two teams would screw all that up. Just move the Rams back to where they belong and leave it at 32 PLEASE.
[/quote]

That would leave a huge gap in the midwest. St. Louis is a big enough city to have an NFL team. Honestly I think there are just too many teams in California already. Move the Raiders back to LA and build them a new stadium if anything.

[EnglishBengal]

[quote name='Lewdog' timestamp='1329035212' post='1095511']

That would leave a huge gap in the midwest. St. Louis is a big enough city to have an NFL team. Honestly I think there are just too many teams in California already. Move the Raiders back to LA and build them a new stadium if anything.
[/quote]
Best idea imo. Oakland my have historically the best of the Raiders legacy, but is Oakland really a city worthy of an nfl franchise or is it just 'Frisco's side car?

[Bleeds Orange]

[quote name='Lewdog' timestamp='1329035212' post='1095511']

That would leave a huge gap in the midwest. St. Louis is a big enough city to have an NFL team. Honestly I think there are just too many teams in California already. Move the Raiders back to LA and build them a new stadium if anything.
[/quote]

Oh, I just threw the Rams thing in there for good measure. I don't care who they move as long as they keep it at 32 teams.

[Lewdog]

[quote name='Bleeds Orange' timestamp='1329173140' post='1095795']

Oh, I just threw the Rams thing in there for good measure. I don't care who they move as long as they keep it at 32 teams.
[/quote]


The problem is, you know the NFL is going to eventually expand. The question then becomes, how many teams do they do so with? Generally they have done it 2 teams at a time, but then this gives either an odd amount of teams in an AFC to NFC ratio, or an uneven number of teams in the divisions of each conference. The only way to expand and keep everything even would be to add 6 teams at once, and we know that isn't going to happen. The best way to do it is add 2 teams, one in each Conference, and then add an another team to the playoffs so that the division in each Conference that has an extra team still has a good shot at making the playoffs because of the extra Wildcard spot.

[|Bunghole|]

I am not in favor of any NFL teams expanding into any other countries. Its America's greatest sport and I want it to remain here. Sorry to sound so...nationalistic, but I am just not in favor of it, especially if they add a team overseas (and I'm sure the players wouldn't like it much either with all the additional travel). Aren't American professional sports players that play for Canadian franchises subject to Canada's higher taxation as well?

[Lewdog]

[quote name='Bunghole' timestamp='1329175038' post='1095804']
I am not in favor of any NFL teams expanding into any other countries. Its America's greatest sport and I want it to remain here. Sorry to sound so...nationalistic, but I am just not in favor of it, especially if they add a team overseas (and I'm sure the players wouldn't like it much either with all the additional travel). Aren't American professional sports players that play for Canadian franchises subject to Canada's higher taxation as well?
[/quote]


Well the thing about it is, they want a team in LA, and they already have the Bills playing a game each year in Toronto so it seems primed to happen. I can't really think of many other US cities that deserve a team. I did think of a couple the other day that MIGHT be ok like Birmingham or Montgomery. What about Little Rock? I don't think Salt Lake would work...primarily because games are played on Sunday. Salt Lake is hugely religious, wouldn't they have some kind of negative reaction to that?

[AmishBengalFan]

The largest TV market with no home-town NFL team is Birmingham, IIRC. There's a list somewhere I can find.... hold on.

[AmishBengalFan]

Not Birmingham. Not even close. Birmingham is #40 on the list and there are a dozen bigger markets without a team:

1 New York
[b]2 Los Angeles[/b]
3 Chicago
4 Philadelphia
5 Dallas-Ft. Worth
6 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
7 Boston
8 Atlanta
9 Washington, DC
10 Houston
11 Detroit
12 Phoenix
13 Tampa-St. Petersburg
14 Seattle-Tacoma
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul
16 Miami-Ft.Lauderdale
17 Cleveland-Akron
18 Denver
[b]19 Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne[/b]
[b]20 Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto[/b]
21 St. Louis
[b]22 Portland, OR[/b]
23 Pittsburgh
24 Charlotte, NC
25 Indianapolis
26 Baltimore
[b]27 Raleigh-Durham[/b]
28 San Diego
29 Nashville
30 Hartford-New Haven

[Lewdog]

Well when I was trying to come up with the best places I was thinking about the size of the city and surrounding areas, distance from other franchises, and history of support for football teams. Birmingham seemed good because it is about half way between Nashville and Atlanta, it's a pretty good sized city and suburbs, and Alabama has a great history of supporting its college teams. They also had a World Bowl or whatever it was called team, and a USFL team.

[AmishBengalFan]

32 is the perfect number, but if the league is determined to fuck with it, then I believe the next best larger # is 36.

With 34 teams, there would either be 17 in each conference (forcing an intraconference game EVERY WEEK) and balanced scheduling would be a nightmare. Also, since 17 is a prime number, it is impossible to evenly divide them between divisions. An 18-16 split would be unfair to the larger conference since both would have the same # of playoff spots - unless the larger conference got an EXTRA playoff spot, which screws things up even worse. If 7 teams advance to the playoffs, there's only one bye team in that conference while the other conference (with 6 playoff teams) have two byes. Also, the thing that most people miss, is that the #2 team has the potential to play THREE home playoff games in one post-season - if the #1 team (who got the bye) gets upset in the divisional round, the #2 seed can win their way to a third home game. Revenue sharing would be a mess, and there's just something not right about having 3 home games.

33 and 35 are right out - odd numbers force a bye team on you every week.

36 can be split into three 6-team divisions in each conference. Scheduling is easier (10 intra-division games, 1 game against the two teams from the other two divisions in your conference who finished in the same position as you last year, and 4 games against a rotating set of designated opponents from the other conference) and playoff seeding is easier, although once you get past 6 teams in the playoffs for a given conference the dreaded three-postseason-home-game spectre looms again.

I would strongly prefer the NFL just move a team to LA (the Chargers would be my choice) than add any expansion teams. But if they are set on adding teams, and if they follow my recommendation to go to 36, then here's how a potential realignment might work:

Assumptions:
ONE expansion team for Los Angeles (not two)
ONE expansion team for each of the three largest NFL-less TV markets (Orlando, Sacramento, Portland)
The NFC gets the two "better" cities (= bigger markets, LA and Orlando)

NFC West:
Seattle Seahawks
San Francisco 49ers
Los Angeles Dons
Arizona Cardinals
St Louis Rams
New Orleans Saints

NFC Central:
Chicago Bears
Green Bay Packers
Minnesota Vikings
Detroit Lions
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Orlando Thunder

NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys
Philadelphia Eagles
NY Giants
Washington Redskins
Carolina Panthers
Atlanta Falcons

The NFC South gets blown up and their teams, plus LA and ORL, get distributed 2 apiece to the other three divisions. It results in New Orleans being back in the West and Tampa back in the Central, which is kinda satisfying.

The AFC is a little trickier. With Portland and Sacramento getting shunted to the junior conference, the West is pretty much set. The problem is how to split the 12 teams from the current East/North/South into two 6-team Central/East divisions. There are two ways I can see to go about this:

Model A - Use the 1999 alignment. This results in a reformation of the old 6-team AFC Central, with all of the unclaimed AFC South teams defaulting to the AFC East, thusly

AFC Central:
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers
Baltimore Ravens
Tennessee Titans
Jacksonville Jaguars

AFC East:
Buffalo/Toronto Bills
New England Patriots
NY Jets
Miami Dolphins
Indianapolis Colts
Houston Texans

The only really oddball thing about that alignment is Houston going to the East. I like the Colts being reunited with their old East foes. My overall take on this is "meh". But there's another option

Option B - Geographical. Baltimore goes away with Indy, Tennessee and Houston coming in.

AFC Central:
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Pittsburgh Steelers
Houston Texans
Tennessee Titans
Indianapolis Colts (or Baltimore Ravens)

AFC East:
Buffalo/Toronto Bills
New England Patriots
NY Jets
Jacksonville Jaguars
Miami Dolphins
Baltimore Ravens (or Indianapolis Colts)

The NFL is unlikely to break Baltimore apart from Cleveland and Pittsburgh. If they stay in the North, then again I see Indy and Baltimore swapping places in this alignment.

In both of the above scenarios:

AFC West:
San Diego Chargers
Oakland Raiders
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs
Sacramento Surge
Portland Riders

[Lewdog]

Well like I said earlier in the thread, history has shown us that the NFL likes to add two teams at a time, even when they know they will eventually add 4 total. I don't think Florida has the fan base for a fourth team. Tamp is also way to close to Orlando for that to work. California has way too many teams, even though Sacrmento is a pretty good distance from the others but it would make more sense to just add Portland and not Sacremento.

So if you want 4 teams, add LA, Portland, Birmingham, and Toronto.

[AmishBengalFan]

All of that speculation aside, I think I would much rather support an NFL-sponsored minor league, where second tier cities could compete for a title and players who don't make the cut in the NFL could play one level lower. Heck, there could even be 32 teams in this minor league - one minor team for each NFL team. Players could move up/down between leagues as needed.

Your 32 next-largest markets (and likely NFL big brother) would be:
Orlando (Buccaneers)
Sacramento (49ers)
Portland (Seahawks)
Raleigh-Durham (Jets)
Hartford CT (Giants)
Columbus, OH (Browns)
Salt Lake City (Broncos)
Milwaukee (Packers)
Greenville SC (Jaguars)
San Antonio (??)
West Palm Beach (Dolphins)
Grand Rapids (Lions)
Birmingham (Falcons)
Harrisburg PA (Steelers)
Las Vegas (Raiders)
Norfolk (Ravens)
Albuquerque (Cardinals)
Oklahoma City (Cowboys)
Greensboro NC (Panthers)
Memphis (Rams)
Austin (Texans)
Louisville (Colts)
Providence RI (Patriots)
Wilkes Barre PA (Eagles)
Fresno (Chargers)
Little Rock (??)
Albany NY (Bills)
Richmond VA (Redskins)
Knoxville (Titans)
Mobile AL (Saints)
Tulsa (Chiefs)
Lexington (Bengals)

The only cities without a natural nearby "big brother" are San Antonio and Little Rock, with the Bears and Vikings both needing a team. Coin flip

San Antonio (Bears)
Little Rock (Vikings)

Your alignment, which is based on the current AFC/NFC alignment with just a couple of tweaks, would be:

Minor AFC
East: Albany (BUF), Harrisburg (PIT), Norfolk (BAL), Providence (NEP)
Central: Columbus (CLE), Knoxville (TEN), Lexington (CIN), Louisville (IND)
South: Austin (HOU), Greenville (JAX), Raleigh-Durham (NYJ), West Palm Beach (MIA)
West: Fresno (SDC), Las Vegas (LAR), Salt Lake City (DEN), Tulsa (KCC)

Minor NFC
East: Greensboro (CAR), Hartford (NYG), Richmond (WAS), Wilkes-Barre (PHI)
Central: Grand Rapids (DET), Little Rock (MIN), Memphis (STL), Milwaukee (GBP)
South: Birmingham (ATL), Mobile (NOS), Oklahoma City (DAL), Orlando (TBB)
West: Albuquerque (PHX), Portland (SEA), Sacramento (SFF), San Antonio (CHI)

Yeah, sometimes I really DO have a lot of time on my hands

[Lewdog]

With this minor league would you have them play in the spring time like they did with the World League? Or have them play during the season on say on Wednesday and Thursday nights? It would be pretty awesome to be able to watch football almost seven days a week. Only problem is ESPN usually televises college games on Thursday already.

[AmishBengalFan]

I would want the seasons to run somewhat concurrently, but the minor league would have a 4-6 week head-start on the NFL and would play a 14-game schedule in 15 weeks (everybody gets one bye) rather than 16 in 17 like the NFL. With a 4-6 week earlier start and 2 fewer weeks of play, the season would end 6-8 weeks before the end of the NFL season, putting you in early-to-mid November. 4 weeks of playoffs gets you to a title game while the NFL still has as many as 2 weeks left to play. Rosters could be expanded to add a half-dozen player to the parent teams' roster.

I would play most games on Thursday/Friday. If the NFL had a Thursday game that week, then play only on Friday.

[Lewdog]

[quote name='AmishBengalFan' timestamp='1329195207' post='1095851']
I would want the seasons to run somewhat concurrently, but the minor league would have a 4-6 week head-start on the NFL and would play a 14-game schedule in 15 weeks (everybody gets one bye) rather than 16 in 17 like the NFL. With a 4-6 week earlier start and 2 fewer weeks of play, the season would end 6-8 weeks before the end of the NFL season, putting you in early-to-mid November. 4 weeks of playoffs gets you to a title game while the NFL still has as many as 2 weeks left to play. Rosters could be expanded to add a half-dozen player to the parent teams' roster.

I would play most games on Thursday/Friday. If the NFL had a Thursday game that week, then play only on Friday.
[/quote]


Wouldn't you think having the minor league guys play Wednesday/Thursday give them an extra day to get ready to play for an NFL team if that got called up? If a guy had to play on Friday and then got a call up, he would only have Saturday to get ready and most teams don't practice on Saturdays. Just an idea to think about. So would calling up guys go on a waiver wire system or would teams only be able to call up guys off their minor league affiliate?

[AmishBengalFan]

I think it would be like how MLB does it... each player in the minors has a contract with an NFL team. If he gets "the call", it is only to his parent club. If there were 32 minor teams, each comprised exclusively of players with contracts with the same NFL parent club, then call-ups are one-to-one.

I would think that a player getting called up would get 9 days instead of 2. If he played on Thursday/Friday, he would report to the parent club over the weekend to learn any basics he would need, then plan to show up on Tuesday for regular practice, with the intent being that he suit-up the following Sunday. The bigger gap also gives him time to rest any aches/pains, and would allow him to go "all out" for his minor club, knowing that if he got called up he'd have an extra few days to prep.

[Lewdog]

I like where you are going with that idea of a 9 day wait, but here is the problem. If say the Bengals, have Clark Harris get injured on Sunday, they have to get a test done and won't know for sure if he is good to go until late in the week, what do they do? Harris is the only long snapper on the team, so do they call up a guy on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday before the minor league team plays, so that they can have him available to play for them on Sunday? Because if they waited until Friday to know if Harris can play, the guy in the minors would have already played and wouldn't be eligible to play that Sunday.

There are a lot of kinks that would need to be worked out, and I think about this kind of stuff all the time, but if previous backed NFL minor leagues didn't work, what do you think would make this one do so?