4CSPORTS
E4 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2017
NFL
SEATTLE The Seattle Seahawks
offensive linemen have heard
what everyone has been saying,
how they’re viewed as the weak
link on a championship-caliber
team and are more of a liability
than an asset.
They hear the detractors.
They’re just trying not to take
that criticism too seriously.
After performances like the
one they had in a 26-6 wild-card
victory against the Detroit Lions,
clearing the way for 177 rushing
yards, Seattle’s much-maligned
offensive line is building confi-
dence heading into the team’s di-
visional playoff game against the
Atlanta Falcons on Saturday.
“We’re never playing for re-
demption or to prove people
wrong, we’re just trying to do
right,” rookie right guard Ger-
main Ifedi told USA TODAY
Sports. “We’re trying to capture
the best us, and as long as we do
that, we’re happy either way.”
It was about time something
went right for the Seahawks of-
fensive line after a regular season
marred by inconsistent play and
lapses in protection. Struggleswere to be expected as the Sea-
hawks broke in two rookies, Ifedi
and left tackle George Fant, a for-
mer college basketball player who
spent one season playing tight
end at Western Kentucky. The
veteran anchor, Justin Britt, wasmoved to center after previous
seasons at tackle and guard.
With so many changes and so
much youth, communication has
often been the biggest problem,
Ifedi says.
“When we’re doing right and
communicating and all on the
same page, we can do special
things,” he said. “If we’re all doing
our own thing, if we don’t know
what the call is, guys aren’t echo-
ing the call, then it can kind of
look helter-skelter.”
It shouldn’t be a coincidence
that the line’s best performance
in weeks came on a night when
the Seahawks committed to the
running game. At one point in the
second quarter, offensive coordi-
nator Darrell Bevell called nine
consecutive running plays.
“Bev was just feeling it, and we
were just going with the guys,”
head coach Pete Carroll said. “He
was really playing off the way we
were coming off the football.
We’ve been doing it for years
around here.”
Most offensive linemen will
tell you they’d rather be movingdownhill, and the Seahawks are
no different, as they know where
their strength is.
“We like to impose our will on
people. Get after them, get after
them, get after them, and then hit
some play action, and only every
once in a while drop back to
pass,” right tackle Garry Gilliam
said. “That’s what we like to do.
We’d rather run. Make it a physi-
cal game, test their will, beat
them up so they don’t want to
play no more.”
The challenge now is a Falcons
defense that has a talented, ath-
letic young nose tackle in Grady
Jarrett and a speedy edge rusher
in Vic Beasley Jr., who led the
NFL with 15^1 ⁄ 2 sacks.
The Seahawks are again ex-
pected to rely on their run game,
both for offense and as a way to
keep the Falcons’ potent offense
on the sideline.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Gil-
liam said. “We’re going to play
good defenses, so it’s a matter of
keeping on track and not getting
discouraged if there’s a negative
play and just keep grinding.”SEAHAWKS’ MALIGNED O-LINE NOW PAVING WAY
Lindsay H. Jones
@bylindsayhjones
USA TODAY Sports
STEVEN BISIG, USA TODAY SPORTS
The Seahawks offensive line gave Russell Wilson time to pass
for 224 yards and two touchdowns in the wild-card win.There are other reasons to be
apprehensive about L.A.: Spanos’
team would have to pay a reloca-
tion fee of about $650 million —
an amount that could be paid back
over 10 years or more. The Char-
gers also would have to start over
in L.A., going from about 50,
season ticketholders in recent
years in San Diego to zero on Day
1 in L.A. Meanwhile, the team
quickly could become an after-
thought next to the Rams and all
of the other sports and entertain-
ment options in a notoriously fick-
le market.
It’s a big risk in its own right.
Yet the Chargers could make more
money and become a more valu-
able franchise in the long run in
the much bigger L.A. market, ac-
cording to projections by Vander-
bilt sports economist John
Vrooman.
“The business logic is go to
(L.A.), increase the value of the
franchise, play in an extraordinary
facility in a couple of years and tap
into the second-largest market in
the United States, all without hav-
ing to put up the debt that a new
stadium would require,” Ganis
said.WHAT CAN KEEP THE
CHARGERS IN SAN DIEGO
More money and time. The Char-
gers and NFL so far are willing to
pay about half of what a new stadi-
um might cost in San Diego —
with $350 million coming from
the Chargers and $300 million
from the NFL. Where the other
$600 million would come from al-
ways has been the issue.
To get taxpayer funding from
the city, another ballot proposal
would be in order, and that likely
wouldn’t happen until 2018. Such
a scenario would be asking Spanos
to gamble on another election and
spend the next two seasons in un-
certainty. The Chargers ranked
31st of 32 NFL teams in average
attendance this season with about
57,000 fans per game, down from
66,772 in 2015.
Team ownership has been
mum on the L.A. decision as the
deadline approaches.
“I understand the fans want to
know,” Spanos’ son and team ex-
ecutive John Spanos told report-
ers last week. “I want to know
that, too, and again, I think it’s
something hopefully we will know
soon.”
The timetable still could changeSAN DIEGO San Diego Chargers
fans are just plain sick of it.
After so many years of hearing
that their team might move to Los
Angeles, many of them are saying
enough.
“Most people are just kind of
fed up,” said Tom Hutchins, a San
Diego native and Chargers season
ticketholder for 24 years. “I’d like
to have this over with.”
And now here it comes. Finally.
Maybe.
Team owner Dean Spanos has
until Sunday to decide whether to
keep the Chargers in San Diego or
move to L.A. to share a lucrative
new stadium with the Los Angeles
Rams.
He could make more money up
there, in theory. So what’s holding
him back?
It’s complicated, because it’s not
just about money. It’s also about
emotion and his feelings for San
Diego, the Chargers’ home since
1961.WHY THE CHARGERS
WILL MOVE
They have no better options and
risk falling further behind finan-
cially if they don’t.
The Chargers play in one of the
worst stadiums in the NFL and
have tried for 15 years to make a
deal to replace it. In November,
56% of San Diego voters rejected a
ballot measure that would have
raised hotel room taxes to help
build a $1.8 billion stadium and
convention center downtown.
That left the team with only
two certain paths: move to that fu-
turistic stadium in L.A., which
opens in 2019, or stay indefinitely
in San Diego at Qualcomm Stadi-
um, which opened in 1967.
“Unless there’s something com-
pelling that’s come from San Die-
go, all the procedural indicators
would suggest he’s going to be-
come the tenant in the (Rams’)
stadium,” said Marc Ganis, a
sports consultant who’s worked
with NFL owners and helped the
Rams and Raiders relocate from
Los Angeles in 1995.
If Spanos doesn’t exercise his
L.A. option, the Oakland Raiders
would be given the option to take
the L.A. opening instead. That
could make the Chargers a loser
twice over — empty-handed in
San Diego with a lost opportunity
120 miles up the coast.WHY THE CHARGERS
WON’T MOVE
History and heart. The Chargers
could have exercised the same L.A.
option last year but didn’t. They
hit the pause button instead and
paid more than $10 million to
fund the campaign for a stadium
proposal. Almost everybody pre-
dicted the ballot effort would fail,
largely because it needed a nearly
impossible two-thirds approval to
win. But Spanos tried anyway.
“His heart has been in San Die-
go,” Ganis told USA TODAY
Sports.because of the Raiders and their
quest to move to Las Vegas.
Wednesday, the NFL’s stadium
and finance committees will meet
in New York to assess that situa-
tion. If the Raiders’ move ap-
peared certain, it could give the
Chargers more time to decide on
L.A. because they wouldn’t have to
worry about the Raiders taking
the L.A. opening away from them.WHY THERE WON’T BE
ANOTHER DELAY
As of Monday, the Chargers had
not asked for an extension and did
not plan to attend the NFL com-
mittee meetings. More time might
not fix the Chargers’ problem and
could make it worse if San Diego
fans and residents resent the con-
stant threat of the team moving.
After the failed ballot measure
in November, there’s no certainty
the Chargers would succeed with
another request for public funding
in San Diego next year. If Spanos
tries again and loses, he risks los-
ing a lot more money with no cer-
tain path to a new stadium.
“The voters spoke very loudly
in that election,” Ganis said.
Another source of funding
could be the NFL or Rams owner
Stan Kroenke. But both are
problematic.
With Kroenke, one theory is
that he wants the L.A. market for
his team alone and might pay to
keep it that way. The problem
with that is Kroenke agreed to
build the stadium to house two
teams. If the Chargers don’t move
in, another team eventually could.
Adding a second team also would
be beneficial to Kroenke because
it would help him pay down the
stadium’s debt and increase the
economic activity for his sur-
rounding development project.
With the NFL, it already of-
fered an extra $100 million to the
Chargers in their San Diego stadi-
um quest, in addition to the
$200 million loan the league pre-
viously has given teams for stadi-
um construction. If the NFL
increases that even more, the next
team that wants a new stadium
would want that, too. It arguably
would be easier for other NFL
owners to avoid that precedent
and encourage Spanos to exercise
his L.A. option, which was given to
him by the league last January.
As of now, the only certain path
to a new stadium for Spanos is in
L.A. All he has to do is say yes.It’s time for Chargers to
decide whether to stay, go
Brent Schrotenboer
@schrotenboer
USA TODAY SportsARTIST’S RENDERING BY HKS SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT VIA AP
Chargers owner Dean Spanos must decide if he wants to join
the Rams at the Los Angeles stadium that will open in 2019.Sports. “We’re hoping to pro-
vide them with that choice.”
The plan: Four teams based
in Southern California, each
playing an eight-game schedule
on Sundays in July and August.
Roughly 50 players per team
making an average salary and
benefits package of $50,000 a
year, which they’d be free to
supplement with endorsements.
Rules tweaked to enhance safe-
ty and give NFL scouts match-
ups they want to see. Coaches
with NFL experience teaching
pro-style schemes. Any player
four years or fewer removed
from high school would be eligi-
ble, including college under-
classmen who had entered the
NFL draft.
Numerous minor leagues
have tried and failed in recent
years to expand the American
pro football landscape by rely-
ing on players who had missed
the NFL cut, which inevitably
limited the potential for creat-
ing a compelling consumer
product. Money has been a
common problem, too, and re-
mains a central question here.
Don Yee, a veteran NFL agent
who is CEO and principal foun-
der of Pac Pro, says the league
has received financing from
family and friends and he has
met with a potential investor,
plus media distributors. But a
lot of work must be done.
There’s no backing from the
NFL or its players union.
What makes the concept in-
triguing is it targets a previously
untapped talent base: players
who currently have no option to
play for pay because the NFL’s
collective bargaining agreement
bars them from the league. (Ba-
sis for that rule: Players need
time to physically and mentally
mature before competing
against fully developed adults.)
Paying up to lure a few NFL-
ineligible superstars such as
Watson would have been a year
ago or as the USFL did decades
ago with Herschel Walker,
would put the new league in the
spotlight, though the economics
are on a smaller scale initially.
Plenty of players would still
choose the glory of the college
game and the four-year educa-
tion that comes with it. But like
minor league baseball or junior
hockey, Pac Pro would be an op-
tion for players who either can’t
or choose not to play on college
scholarships, some straight out
of high school. Think academic
non-qualifiers, junior college
players paying their own way,
players with urgent need to pro-
vide for their families, those
transitioning from another
sport, those who would have to
sit out a year under transfer
rules, those who have been dis-
missed from a college program,
those who simply want a differ-
ent path — perhaps, eventually,
some top college players who
want to start cashing checks and
use the league as a sort of foot-
ball graduate program.
“You’ve got all day to spend
with football,” said former NFL
coach Mike Shanahan, who is
on the league’s advisory board.
If players want to attend
school, the summer schedule
wouldn’t interfere and there
would be an option to receive
one year’s tuition and books at a
community college. Training
would continue year-round on a
similar calendar to that used in
the NFL. There also would be
development opportunities for
coaches and officials, who could
come from a program started
for military veterans by another
advisory board member, former
NFL head of officiating Mike
Pereira.
It would cost millions to get
something this ambitious start-
ed, though. Salaries, insurance,
medical expenses, equipment —
it all adds up.
“We believe that the business
environment is good for a pro-
ject like this,” said Yee, who has
written on college sports’ ex-
ploitation of athletes. “We be-
lieve that the players are ready
for a choice, and we think we
can be a good supplement to
other football products that are
out there.”
There are no plans to have
traditional roster cuts, Yee said,
but for some, taking the new op-
tion would mean giving up an-
other. Any player signing a Pac
Pro contract would forfeit
NCAA eligibility.
McCaffrey’s involvement is
notable because his son, Stan-
ford star Christian McCaffrey,
was among the high-profile
players to sit out bowl games
this last month with an eye to-
ward April’s NFL draft. Another
son, Dylan McCaffrey, has com-
mitted to play at the University
of Michigan, which also has of-
fered a scholarship to youngest
son Luke, a high school sopho-
more who would be eligible for
Pac Pro’s second season if the
projected schedule holds.
“I’m hoping he gets an invite,”
Ed McCaffrey said. “If he’s lucky
enough to be considered, I’ll
certainly sit down with him and
we’ll have that discussion.
“Honestly, I believe that
there will be thousands of kids
that want to play in this league.
I think the toughest thing that
we will have to do is limit the
scope.”League targets
untapped base
v CONTINUED FROM1C
CARY EDMONDSON, USA TODAY SPORTS
Ex-NFL coach Mike Shana-
han is on the advisory board.FOLLOW NFL REPORTER
TOM PELISSERO
@TomPelissero for the latest
news and analysis.