FanPost

London Franchise...Impossible

I've seen a lot of speculation recently about the Rams moving and the NFL wanting a franchise in London some day. Well, I'm here to let you know that there will never be a franchise in London and why the NFL has not realized this is baffling.

Let's start off with the obvious: travel. London to NYC flight is 7 hours or so. With jet lack and having to travel back and forth across the Atlantic every couple of weeks does not sound plausible, much less players/coaches wanting to do it. I believe after the current teams go to London they have a bye week. So that means that any team that goes to London to play an away game would need to have a bye following. What if a team plays a Monday Night game and then has a Saturday game in London late in the season? The travel would be more wear and tear on the players then I believe they would want. What if the London team has 3 away games in a row? Will they just stay in the U.S. play a lot of money for hotels and renting complexes or go back to London every week?


Next point is divisions. They would have to be realigned to allow the London franchise to play all East Coast teams in their division. This would not happen. I can't see owners giving up rivalries and moving conferences and divisions for one franchise.

I'd like to see a poll of players and coaches to find out how many of them would even want to play over there. I think that would be a major problem. How many players would bolt from the London team if they were free agents? How would they attract free agents? Having said that, think about current roster. How often is the bottom third being tooled with? Think about how often players on the practice squad are cut and replaced. Players get picked up for a couple of weeks and are cut. Does that make sense to fly to London to get cut 3 days later?

I really don't see how it is possible to permanently put a franchise in London.

On another note, I seriously doubt the Rams relocate to L.A. AEG, the company sponsoring planning and footwork being put in to get a stadium there, has already said a stipulation for whatever team moves there will be that they will purchase at least a minority share in the team. Does Kroenke seem like the type of business man who would sell part of the Rams 5 years after purchasing them. I don't think so.