San Diego Raiders? Nope.

Everybody just calm down. The Raiders aren’t coming to San Diego. Just like the time the entire sports media claimed Philip Rivers stated unequivocally that he would never accompany the team to L.A. the facts have been twisted. When Mark Davis said he would be open to the Raiders coming to San Diego, he also basically said he’d be open to any and all options including, I presume, being the first NFL team on Mars. Not exactly a courtship of our fine city.

Now, there are a couple of reasons why the prospect would be intriguing, and they all center around spite. I’m sure Faulconer and the City of San Diego would love to prove to the Chargers and the NFL that they’re more than willing to build a facility for a team that actually wants to be here, and that would certainly undermine the idea the team or the league ever wanted to stay.  Which in turn would undermine the efforts of the league to make an example of San Diego as a town unwilling to do business with the NFL and therefore not being worthy of its presence. And that is one reason why the NFL would never allow it. San Diego’s greatest value to the NFL if the Chargers leave is as a cautionary tale.

And sure Mark Davis would love to come to San Diego and take a big bite out of that L.A. market. Everyone knows the City of Angels loves the Raiders more than the Chargers or even the Rams, who they didn’t so much as bother to wave to when they left all those years ago. But the NFL isn’t going to let that happen either. They’ll have traded the flea market that is San Diego for the Rodeo Drive of Los Angeles. They’re not going to reopen the flea market. If the Raiders don’t make it to L.A. they’re going to land in St. Louis or San Antonio or some other as yet unmentioned destination, but with two teams in L.A. Southern California will be full up for football.

So no, the Raiders aren’t coming to San Diego and neither is anybody else. Not for a long time, if ever.