No to Toronto!

[OCinBuffalo]

I know that I have the right to remain silent, but sometimes I just don't have the ability.

 

From a larger perspective, we seem to agree that LA is not going to get an NFL team any time soon - - we just disagree about why.

 

1. We agree that the LA market has been open for at least 14 years. It's certainly possible that I simply missed it, but I cannot recall one time during those 14 years where an elected official called a press conference to point out that the lowlife owner of the city's NFL team had threatened to move the team to LA. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm guessing your position will be that no such press conference ever occurred because no such threat was ever made. I'm dubious, but admit that I cannot prove you wrong. BTW, you might actually get my vote if you ran for office, but I'm not sure you'd win. Maybe in Montana.

Nobody has threatened to move to LA or tried to use LA as leverage. Instead, they have used other approaches. I just don't see the LA market as a significant enough to be used by an NFL team.

 

Rather, there have been plenty of LA sports media tools who have started rumors about 5-10 teams moving to their city, right along since 1995. It started out with the Ravens moving to LA instead of Baltimore. Then it was Cinncinnati. Then it was Detroit. Then it was Minnesota. Then it was a whole slew of teams including the Dolphins. Then it was Buffalo in 2005, that was the strongest the rumor has ever been regarding us. More recently it was "the Rams are moving back". And now it's the Chargers.

 

In other words, it's any port in the storm for these people, as long as they can continue to reinforce the delusion that their culture doesn't suck, and is worthy of an NFL team.

2. Glad to hear you considered the possibility that maybe the political climate got worse elsewhere while LA stayed the same - - that gives your arguments more weight in my view. It seems likely to me that, based on the "OC" in your screen name, a logical but not necessarily required reference to "Anaheim" in one of your above posts in this thread, and the right-of-center political leanings evidenced by your "signature" (if that's the right term) in each post, you've actually lived in Orange County. Admittedly, that makes you more of an expert on LA than most people who post here. FWIW, I concluded a long time ago that LA is simply a sucky football town where loons and dirtbags almost outnumber rational people. We only disagree about the ratio. I'd put it at about 49/51. But from an NFL owners' perspective, a dollar from the loons and dirtbags is worth the same as a dollar from you.

Nope. I have just worked in LA and been to Anaheim often enough to know that they don't want an "NFL crowd" anywhere near them. And quite frankly, I wouldn't want to attend an NFL game in Anaheim. They would find a way to annoy me from the airport to the game and back.

 

Even if I didn't have the personal experience, all I would have to do is pick up a paper, and read about the LA Dodgers mess. As I said: LA provides us an example that it's culture is ****ty every other day. You don't have to have lived and worked there to know that something is definitely, massively wrong in California in general, and LA and SF in particular.

 

As always: I tell the truth and I don't care if people like it or not. If that makes me "right-of-center", then so be it. I am not worried about the delicate sensibilities of anyone who chooses to be an assclown, and/or keeps pushing 100 year old ideas that fail, and I never will be.

3. "Which LA judge is going to rule AGAINST the mandatory interpretive dance alternative for those people that demand the "equality" of being able to attend the football game, but don't want to watch football?"

 

I've lived in several areas of the country, and spent significant amounts of time for work in a few more. Before he became a judge, I played poker and watched ESPN at presently undisclosed times and locations more than once with this guy - - From http://www.dgs.ca.go...OAHOffices.aspx

 

"ALJ Howard W. Cohen has been an Administrative Law Judge with the Los Angeles regional office of the Office of Administrative Hearings since October 2009. ALJ Cohen received his bachelor's degree from UCLA in biology. ALJ Cohen received his juris doctorate degree from the University of Michigan Law School. ALJ Cohen has completed the required training necessary to conduct mediations and administrative hearings."

 

I'm pretty confident I know how he would rule on the "mandatory interpretive dance alternative" issue.

And how long would that ruling last? How fast would it be appealed, and heard, by the appellate court? How much hell would Judge Cohen have to endure for making a rational decision?

 

But that's not the interesting part here. The interesting part is that you did not reject the "mandatory interpretive dance alternative" issue on its face as being patently ridiculous, even though I am laying it on pretty thick with that example, and have given you multiple opportunities. And why? Because you know that while the concept itself is ridiculous, the likelihood for a court case coming to pass in which you friend will have to make a ruling on it? That's not ridiculous at all, is it? In fact, it's pretty darn likely in LA, isn't it?

 

What is wrong with a culture where the possibility, never mind the likelihood, of forced interpretive dance this exists? You can say: "nothing". But as an NFL owner, I would say: "everything".

I agree with you that stadium approvals are likely to take longer in LA than most places, and freeway congestion is a consideration (though not insurmountable). Most of your remaining statements on point #3 exhibit more than just the usual satire of LA "culture" - - they border on vitriol. I'm big on personal privacy, so I won't criticize you if you choose not to answer, but when you were in Orange County did you lose a court case, get divorced, get laid off or get swindled by somebody? OC to Buffalo is a somewhat unusual move if I'm reading between the lines accurately (and I certainly might not be - - reading between the lines is always risky).

You are way off base. Nothing of the above occurred. In fact I had a fine work experience and an even finer night/weekend experience while there. You will find that to be the case in almost all of the places I have lived and worked. It's very hard to make me not have a good time and get along with people I work with.....

 

However, none of that changes the fact that my observational/information gathering skills don't turn themselves off. Even if I wanted to, I doubt I could stop myself from gathering info about a topic once it piques my interest. None of the fun times changes the amount or content of data that supports my position.

 

Vitriol? You can't start fixing your problems if you won't admit that you have them, and everybody around you ignores them or buys into your delusion. I can either choose to ignore what I saw, and go on about my business, or, I can say "hey, you have a problem pal, and you'd better do something about it before it gets worse."

 

I hardly think mine is the only voice currently shouting "LA, and Cali in general are completely F'ed"! right now. And again, even from so far away I am constantly being handed examples that attest to that fact via the media. Even if we threw out half the stories as sensationalism...the other half are pretty bad.

 

Yet, what is being done about the loons that got LA/Cali into this mess? Nothing. It took 50 years to make the mess that is now California, and it started with toleration of loons. If the clean-up plan doesn't start with an immediate end to that toleration, it will fail. And back on point: no NFL team will move there.

4. I can't force you to use google, but I know you can because the link you kindly provided in my "Reorganizing The Scouting Department" thread had some pretty funny stuff in it.

Uh, actually it's your turn to use google. You are looking to prove that there haven't been any real plans to put a team in LA over the last 16 years, and that nobody has spent any feasibility money on the effort. Good luck!

5. You make some good points here - - my only disagreement is how much the franchise would have to win to "have any chance." I think that's something about which reasonable minds can legitimately differ.

I am using the NFL Europe, and other, behavior patterns. They could have done a lot of things with that. They just pulled the plug instead. Why wouldn't they do the same thing/hold the same standards, if not higher, since we are talking about a real NFL franchise?

6. "Why should one team get special consideration in a league that is supposed to be about parity?"

 

A London franchise could make a pretty forceful argument that special consideration was required to MAINTAIN parity. They simply argue that they are already at a competitive disadvantage because their team makes an international flight 8 times a season, whereas no other team has to do it more than once. They would argue that avoiding Sunday and Monday night games reduces the existing competitive disadvantage that is already forced on them by geography - - bringing them back closer to parity.

I would argue that the league already had parity before they joined, and that making the decision to join the league meant that you were also accepting the competitive disadvantages, along with the advantages. It's not anybody else's job to look into your business for you. These disadvantages were not withheld or distorted from the potential owner of the England team, nor were they deceived by the NFL about them, just the opposite. They knew what they would be going in, and the rest of the league isn't liable for their choices.

 

Ultimately it should be the NFL, and not a single new team, that decides what is best for the NFL as a whole. IF the NFL wants to make special rules for the England team, so be it. Otherwise, we are back to "they won't be able to sign FAs".

7. "In contrast to the rest of the country, WNY is also very laid back. ... You cannot develop the same intensity for your team as NY people have for theirs if you have already left the stadium by the 2nd quarter"

 

This is internally inconsistent. LA sports fans do leave early, but that is evidence of how laid back they are compared to WNY.

 

Ive been to football games in several places, but never in Miami. I also don't know anything about Cowherd, so I have no basis to comment about either of them.

How is it inconsistent to call someone who has 0 potential to be anything other than malignantly self-involved...malignantly self-involved?

How is it inconsistent to point to out a pattern of behavior and say: well, based on that, we know how they are going to act going forward?

 

There is nothing "laid back" about leaving early. That is simply being passive aggressive, and/or, a douche with a completely Fed perspective, that, again, is a product of a completely Fed culture. It pre-supposes that somehow being at the game means you, personally, are being associated with the team, that somewhere, the score is being kept about your image, and that when the team loses, somehow your personal image suffers.

 

I am not suggesting that anyone be happy about losing. I am saying that when people are obviously leaving so early so as to not only not be associated with the loss, but not even a few bad plays, as though anybody cares about them, or their image, or believes that a score is being kept...that this indicates a serious set of cultural problems.

 

This set of problems is precisely the reason the NFL will not work in LA. If no one wants to take the chance that they might lose "image points" by going to the game...then no one will go to the game.

Edited May 16, 2011 by OCinBuffalo