Roger Goodell took the airwaves in a Friday radio interview with ESPN New York. Asked about his prior comments pertaining to league expansion and moving teams, the NFL Commissioner reiterated his stance, a stance that should buoy those hoping to see the Rams stay in St. Louis.
"We want to keep our teams where they are," Goodell said. "We are working hard to make sure we either get the stadiums built or do the kinds of things that are necessary to build the fans support to make those teams successful in those communities ..."
Credit the man for sticking to his talking points. CEOs don't make $20 million salaries for going off script. Sarcasm aside, his remark about getting the stadiums built does lend it more sincerity, especially in light of the league's renewed stadium loan plan.
As for expansion talk, Goodell pushed back again on the comments he made to Bob Costas in the days before the Super Bowl.
"We are not considering expansion," Goodell said. "I've tried to make that clear when I was asked by Bob Costas recently. He said you just go to 33 teams. I said I don't think you would ever expand by one team. You would expand by two teams, but I was very clear that expansion is not something we have considered. It is something we can potentially do down the road having the kind of stability that we have, but we like our structure right now. We like the 32 teams. We think the scheduling is in a good place."
"... we'll look at the Los Angeles opportunity as it comes and try to figure out the right way to solve that problem if a solution can be determined," he added.
An open spot in Los Angeles is of great help to the league to get those stadium deals done. Should those building programs not work out for struggling teams, LA could get a team before the league does start talking about expansion.