Should the NFL have a team in Los Angeles? No.

This is courtesy of Sports Illustrated.com
By Jonah Freedman

The NFL and Los Angeles? After 10 years apart, those two things go together like Wal-Mart and Rodeo Drive. If storied franchises such as the Rams and Raiders couldn't succeed in the City of Angels, why would a moribund team such as the Saints, or worse, an expansion team?

Simple fact: The Raiders and Rams aren't missed in the least. When those teams called L.A. home, their respective stadiums were half-empty nearly every game day, so real fans who couldn't afford overpriced tickets were rewarded with TV blackouts.

It's not that we Angelenos aren't NFL fans. On the contrary, we learned to watch nationally televised games between competitive teams. Ratings in the Los Angeles area haven't suffered since Georgia Frontiere packed up the Scrams and moved to St. Louis, or since Al Davis took his hoodlums back to Oakland.

Think about it: After fighting traffic 10 commutes a week, why would we choose to do it again during the weekend? We have better things to do with our Sundays. Besides which, right about the time the rest of the country is hunkering down for lousy football-season weather, Southern Californians enjoy temperatures in the 60s and 70s. Why would we waste a beach day at the run-down L.A. Memorial Coliseum? Come to think of it, that rattrap's current occupants -- the USC Trojans -- probably could beat half of the teams in the NFL anyway.

Ultimately, if you ask Angelenos to recall their favorite L.A. football memories, they likely won't say the Rams' stifling defensive line of the 1970s, or Bo Jackson's explosive 90-yard scampers during the '90s. No, our greatest hit is the one former Rams QB Jim "Don't Call Me Chris" Everett laid on Jim Rome -- in a television studio.

I have to agree. As much as I would love to have an actual home town team to root for again I do not think it would be a good situation for the team to be in Los Angeles.