Chargers shouldn’t look for a welcome wagon in L.A.

Chargers shouldn’t look for a welcome wagon in L.A.

By Bill Plaschke

Every relationship is built on honesty, so the San Diego Chargers should hear this as their moving vans are chugging up the 5 Freeway on their noble mission of greed.

We. Don’t. Want. You.

The news broke Thursday that Chargers owner Dean Spanos has informed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell he is moving the team to Los Angeles, which is pretty much dreadful news for Los Angeles.

Wow, just what we need, the return of a professional sports team with no buzz, no tradition, few local fans north of south Orange County, limited success, and an owner who just stole them away from a place where they were loved unconditionally for 56 years.

What was the NFL thinking? What are the Chargers thinking? I know what Spanos is thinking, that he is leaving behind those unwashed heathens who didn’t want their tax dollars to pay for a football stadium and sliding into Stan Kroenke’s Inglewood palace to ride piggyback on the Rams.

What a guy. What a joke.

The problem is not that Los Angeles must now be asked to support two NFL teams after 22 years of somehow surviving with none. We knew this would happen. This was the deal when the Rams returned last year. This is what the NFL has always wanted for Inglewood, so there was no avoiding it.

The problem is, the second team should have been the Raiders. The Southland is filled with Raiders fans everywhere. I have still never met a single Chargers fan.

The NFL will feel the full embarrassment of this move next fall when the Raiders play the Chargers here and the stadium will be painted in silver and black. At least that game will be sold out. Whether they initially play in the giant Coliseum or the tiny confines of StubHub Center, it’s hard to imagine the Chargers selling many tickets for any of their other games in the next two years before the Inglewood palace opens.

The Chargers aren’t even the second team in town behind the Rams. The Chargers aren’t even the third team of interest here behind the Rams and Raiders. The Chargers might not even be in the top-five favorite NFL teams in Los Angeles.

And now they’re going to play their home games here? It’s difficult to imagine many people really caring. Look at how many fans fled the Rams after they won only four games in their dismal return season here. Are those fans now going to get behind a team that has advanced to one Super Bowl since the Super Bowl began being played 51 years ago? The Chargers have won four playoff games in 22 years and, like, don’t we already have one of those teams?

The Rams have been awful, and are currently terrible, but because they played here for 48 years, they still feel like “our” Rams.

The Chargers will brag about how they were born here in 1960, but, seriously, they stuck around only one year before fleeing south.

The Chargers are San Diego’s team. The Chargers are beloved there. The Chargers belong there. And in coming days, don’t listen to all these NFL experts moan that because of stadium issues, the Chargers couldn’t make it work there.

Sure they could. According to a recent Forbes ranking, the Spanos family is worth $2.1 billion. They could have made it work there if they weren’t insistent on using public money that the people of San Diego smartly refused to give them.

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[www.latimes.com]