Already some of this news has been reported on various sports rumor websites. Pro Football Talk reported January 27 about the press conference and said:

For now, the leading candidate remains the San Diego Chargers, a franchise that geographically is the closest to Los Angeles, and that played there in its inaugural season.

– Pro Football Talk

T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times reported on December 7 that the Chargers might play in L.A. in 2012.

There is some discussion in the Skyscraper City forum about how Farmers is expected to sponsor the stadium.

The Los Angeles Daily news has also reported that Farmers is the leading contender to sponsor the stadium:

According to sources, the rights fee is expected to be $700 million over 30 years if one team plays at the proposed stadium and $900 million if it is two. Farmers Insurance is the company being speculated as the primary candidate to strike a deal.

– L.A. Daily News

SCOTT JACOBS

Fred Taylor has been the face of the Jaguars for much of his 11 year career. The former Florida Gator, who had amassed 11,271 rushing yards during an injury prone career, wanted to be that rare breed who finished a brilliant career with the same team he started with.  But yesterday, despite reports that Taylor was willing to take a pay cut to remain a Jaguar, the team cut the greatest running back it’s ever had.

Such is life for a running back in the NFL.  Great one minute.  Completely disposable the next.  It’s a tough fall for Taylor, who has spent his entire football life in the Sunshine State, but not one that is entirely that shocking.  The question for NFL veterans in the salary cap era is not, “what have you done for me lately,” but “what haven’t you done for me lately.”  It’s a cruel, painless demise that most former elite running backs face nowadays, with their position being labeled one of the most replacable and shortest lasting in the game.

Taylor is just one of many players who have been kicked to the curb despite consistent brilliance, because the ‘ol body didn’t have in it’s 30’s what it once had in it’s 20’s.  Because of that, the days of the Emmitt Smiths seem long gone. 

Larry Johnson was a machine from 2005 to 2006, scoring 37 touchdowns on the ground, and logging 752 carries.  The heart and soul of the Chiefs, LJ was indispensable, one of the few untouchables on KC, and a dynamo in fantasy leagues everywhere.  He was the engine that made their offense run.  Now, no one wants him.  Including, Kansas City.  That’s what 1,243 carries in six seasons will do for you.  His run ins with the law haven’t exactly helped his case either.

LaDanian Tomlinson was the greatest football player on the planet just a few years ago.  In 2006 he lit up the league for an astonishing 31 touchdowns, while bolting to 1,815 yards on the ground.  LT was an elite player, a fabulous athlete who could not only run the ball like the wind, but he could even throw the pigskin around a little too.  Picked 5th in the now infamous Michael Vick draft, after the Chargers traded their first overall pick for essentially him and Drew Brees, he helped turn around the helpless Lightning Bolts into an AFC contender.  But he’s on the wrong side of 29 now, and the full tank of gas is dropping steadily.  Tomlinson had his worst season as a pro last year, and still had 1,110 yards and 11 touchdowns, but the crickets starting coming out of the woodworks that not only were his best days behind him, but that he also might be expendable.

I guess that’s what 2,657 career rushing carries will do for a player.  And even though LT has scored 126 career rushing touchdowns, he’s not the same guy he once was.  Sure-fire Hall of Famer?  The eight year vet sure seems like a lock.  But it’d be a major stretch to say he’ll retire as a Charger.  He’s old news and the Chargers are looking for someone with younger fresher legs.

Six years of greatness, coupled with a few untimely injuries?  See ya!  Hitting 30 when we’ve got a 25 year old on our team who can fly?  Bye bye.  League MVP just a few years ago, but not what he once was?  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Is it fair?  I don’t think it’s even remotely fair.

But it makes me understand why running backs command such seemingly obscene salaries.  They have to strike while the iron’s hot.  Like a stock, their value can plummet on a dime.

The aforementioned Emmitt Smith didn’t even finish his career with the Cowboys.  His last two seasons were forgettable ones as an Arizona Cardinal.

Shaun Alexander was the NFL’s league MVP in 2005 while helping to lead the Seahawks to their first Super Bowl.  But this offseason he was cut, not by Seattle, but by the Redskins.  Alexander who carried the ball a mind-blowing 370 times his MVP season got just 11 touches for a pedestrian 24 yards this past season.  His fall from grace complete, Alexander isn’t a trend-setter, merely just a product of a system that uses and abuses you, and then disposes of you.

These are the guys who put their team on their back and burden the load of carrying the offense.  When great, they’re the stars, the ‘it’ guys, and the untouchables.  But when father time creeps up, it comes fast.  Great players often find themselves cut to demoralizing exits, not only failing to spend their career with one team, but getting humiliated in the way that they are forced to leave town.

Cuts.  They stink.  No one wants to be cut.  But with salaries not guaranteed in the “what haven’t you done for me” world of the NFL, the longevity of a running back is on the verge of a total collapse.  The running back position is the NFL’s glamor position, but recently its become the league’s greatest positional revolving door.  Six years of greatness, coupled with a few untimely injuries?  See ya!  Hitting 30 when we’ve got a 25 year old on our team who can fly?  Bye bye.  League MVP just a few years ago, but not what he once was?  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

And there is no sign of change either.

With the current system in place teams have no reason to actually fulfill their hefty contracts that they give to their then-elite running backs, turned mere mortal.  And the league is built that way.  That’s why signing bonuses are everything.  Five, six year contracts are a joke!  Get through year three, and the team is already getting your agent on the phone to renegotiate, sometimes for a lower number.

But college running backs now know the drill going in.  You better run while the going’s good, because as soon as you hit a rough patch, they’ll run you out of town.

So when Edgerrin James, Arizona’s prized $30 million free agent signing from a few years ago, gets cut this off-season don’t even blink an eye.  It’s the nature of the beast.  Fair or unfair, that’s how things go over in the most popular sport that this country has.

Great now, forgotten almost immediately.

Photo: Getty Images

SCOTT JACOBS

How many years can one hear the phrase, “most talented team in the NFL,” before they finally come to their senses and realize that San Diego’s massively disappointing NFL team just might be the most over-rated team in the league.  And in an age where parity reigns supreme, and close games are the norm, the Bolts are just another team in a crowded field of franchises that just aren’t getting it done. Not this year at least.

At 5-8, clinging to the idea that they might be able to finish at .500 a year after giving the Pats a decent run for their money in the AFC Title game, the Chargers look like a fraud in 2008.  Everyone’s been putting them on this pedestal, and they’ve just admired the spotlight, as teams raced past them.

Their game against the lowly Raiders was so under the radar that I forgot it was on.  And I think the NFL probably wishes they could get a do over.  (Where’s our flex schedule they must be asking themselves!)

Quietly Ladanian Tomlinson is on pace for the worst season of his career (though we should note that he would still get to 1000 yards at this pace), and Norv Turner is once again proving why he hasn’t succeeded as an NFL coach.  Sure, the expectations are through the roof, but I think he knows that he’s done as soon as the Broncos win one more game to clinch the West.

Look, I get it.  The Chargers have been hit with bad luck, injuries, the works.  But in a division where the winner may not finish above .500, a team as “loaded” as these Chargers are so should breeze their way back into the playoffs.

They haven’t.  And shortly, we’ll be turning the light on their playoff dreams.

A year after they almost got by the machine that was the New England Patriots.

But that’s how it goes in the NFL.

Compliments only get you so far.  The Chargers are learning that the hard way.

SCOTT JACOBS

Sometimes the numbers do lie.

The Saints-Chargers are set to play the NFL’s Euopean pet project 2.0 for 2008 this weekend at Wembley Stadium in London. 90,000 people are expected for a game between a pair of two disappointing but high scoring teams. But just because people are filling the seats, doesn’t mean people care.

Look around. Search the internet. Google it if you want. I can’t find anything from a London source published recently on the much hyped (yeah, whatever) Bolts-’Aints game. Much hyped maybe in America. Maybe. The game has gone so far under the radar due to the tired realization that this experiment has already gotten old, that I just remembered they were playing the game this week.

San Francisco and Arizona played a very successful game in Mexico City a few years back, and over 100,000 people showed up. That game worked, because it was played on Sunday Night! If you’re going to go big, go all the way. Sticking the game within the confines of the NFL’s afternoon slate of games is boring, and it loses it’s luster.

They did this last year too. The Giants and Dolphins played a horrible 13-10 slop-fest in rainy conditions on Wembley’s sloshy field, and it was painful to watch. The crowd on tv sounded like they had no idea what was going on. “Did he score a goal one lad probably asked another?” “No the other replied, I think he got a red card.”

But this isn’t about making fun of London ‘football’ fans. This is about exposing the fact that there is no buzz about this game. None. Seriously. I searched online for a while and came up with nothing recent. It’s as if the game isn’t even being played. Maybe it’s just a figment of our imagination and the NFL’s sly marketing. Or maybe, the NFL is sticking a sport down people’s throats in a country where they just don’t care that much.

But hey, why stop at one game a year. Back in March there were reports that the NFL might give Britain four game a year. Heck, why not just outsource every game to a different area. We could play games in Turkey, Mongolia, Paris, Berlin, and uh, maybe Antartica has an open date too. While they’re at it, let’s just rename the Super Bowl the World Bowl. And then people will stop calling it American football. They can call it World Foot Ball.

I’m not against experimenting with globalizing the game. But when major London newspapers don’t say a peep about your game, and there is nothing online, can you really look me in the eyes honestly and proclaim, ‘London is truly into this?’

This is such a gimmick.

Enjoy it, because the NFL is doing this in London until at least 2010.

UPDATE: From Mitchell:

This is what some England residents had to say about the NFL’s first game in London:

This is all just crap marketing nonsense. I do recall that the NFL have already tried to impose this body-armoured, steroid-fuelled, waste-of-three-hours-even-though-it’s supposed-to-take-one pointless sport on Europe and got precisely nowhere. And the reason? People here watch sport to see people compete, not to see cheerleaders and $15m running backs do little celebration dances because ‘they are the man’ and certainly not to see drugged up thirty stone idiots shoving each other for three seconds at a time. This will have the same impact NFL Europe had.

Seems they really are embracing us.

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The scoreboard says Broncos-39, Chargers-38, but the Broncos didn’t win.

With the Broncos charging, down by 7, Cutler fumbled at the 10. He dropped the ball sideways but his arm continued going forward, so the officials immediately ruled it incomplete and whistled the play dead. (Brady may be injured, but his legacy is still impacting games.)

The Chargers recovered the fumble uncontested.

After further review, the officials ruled that, wait, that was actually a fumble, but we whistled the play dead.

Great call. (Like Miller Lite.)

Now you can make the wrong call, review the play to find out you made the wrong call, then put up a meaningless excuse and take no blame.

The Broncos scored shortly thereafter then got the two-point conversion for the win.

Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall had 18 catches for 166 yards and 1 TD.

QB-wise, Culter had 350 yards and 4 TDs, and Rivers had 377 yards and 3 TDs.

You won’t find any of that on ESPN, though.

ESPN’s stats say that the game is over and that Andre Hall was the Broncos top receiver with 10 catches. Just about five minutes ago, they said that there was 9 seconds left and Chris Royal was their top receiver with 9 catches. Rivers still only has 217 yards.

Here their stats are, but I’m sure they will be completely updated in an hour or two or three after the time of this post.