Column
Twenty years after the Rams and Raiders left Southern California, two of the iconic players from those NFL teams sat on a plane this week, flying from Burbank to Phoenix for a few rounds of golf.
Hall of Fame running backs Eric Dickerson and Marcus Allen, now best buddies, talked football to The Times during the commercial flight and shared their feelings about the possibility one or both of those franchises could return to the nation’s second-largest market.
The Rams, Raiders and San Diego Chargers are all on year-to-year stadium leases and are unhappy with their current venues. Each is eyeing the L.A. market.
Although the Chargers also have local ties — they began life as the Los Angeles Chargers in 1960 and played their debut season in the Coliseum before moving to San Diego — Allen said that among teams that potentially could play in the Southland, “I can’t see anybody else, anybody with the history and the following, that would be as natural as the Raiders and Rams.”
Allen was a Heisman Trophy winner at USC who played for the L.A. Raiders from 1982-92 before phase two of his career with Kansas City. He was the most valuable player of Super Bowl XVIII, the only time an L.A. team hoisted the Lombardi Trophy.
A friend of Raiders owner Mark Davis, Allen envisions the Raiders and Rams sharing a stadium, but concedes that probably wouldn’t be easy.
“You just don’t see these two organizations sharing anything because they’re so independent,” he said. “But I think today it can happen, and I think the league has made a decision that in order for a team to return it’s going to have to be one stadium shared by two teams. And I think it can happen.”
Dickerson, who spent 41/2 seasons with the Rams from 1983-87 and still holds the NFL single-season rushing record with 2,105 yards in 1984, said the Rams should move back to Southern California. They played in Anaheim throughout his Rams career — after playing in the Coliseum from 1946, when they moved from Cleveland to L.A., until 1980, when they moved to Orange County.
“St. Louis is a baseball town,” Dickerson said. “It’s all about baseball. Even when [the Rams] won the Super Bowl, [then team president] John Shaw said it was hard for us to even sell seats then. They were the hottest team in the league then.”
Do the Rams belong in L.A.?
“Oh, hell yeah,” he said. “Come on. It’s the L.A. Rams — the Los Angeles Rams. Even when they were in Anaheim, I didn’t know the difference. I just think they should be in L.A.”
Dickerson, who spent the 1992 season with the L.A. Raiders, thinks that team should stay in Oakland.
“Yeah, we could share a stadium,” he said. “But I just feel like the Raiders should always be in Oakland. They’re the Oakland Raiders. It’s like the Dallas Cowboys leaving Dallas. Even when they were in L.A., I thought of them as the Oakland Raiders.”
Then, Dickerson added: “I think the Chargers are going to get there before the Raiders will. Maybe before the Rams.”
That’s typical for the fog of uncertainty that surrounds this situation. There have been so many false starts over the past 20 years that it’s hard to take any of the chatter too seriously. However, Rams owner Stan Kroenke purchased 60 acres of potential stadium land in Inglewood last December, and that marks the first time a current NFL owner also acquired enough L.A. property to build a stadium. That makes the situation more realistic.
Allen believes the Raiders would be embraced by the L.A. market even though the team left on such a sour note, with constant fights in the stands at games and the Raiders image being embraced by the gang culture.
“We can’t let a few bad apples destroy the full L.A. fan base,” said Allen, who lives in Santa Barbara. “That was just a unique time where rap and the Raiders merged to create a following that was not looked upon very highly. But in my opinion, it was a very small minority of fans. The majority of fans were just passionate Raider fans.”
As for his famous falling out with Al Davis, the late owner of the Raiders who died in 2011: “I think that’s a thing of the past. Coming back and lighting the torch for Al, being asked by Mark and his mother to come back. I think that set the tone for a great relationship moving forward.
“Mark and I have always been friends. He’s weighing his options and I think he’s going to make a smart decision. I think from a business standpoint, for them, the value of the Raiders will go through the roof if they were to move down here.”
Dickerson, who lives in Calabasas, said for the last two decades he’s missed the rivalry the L.A. Rams had with the San Francisco 49ers.
“Oh, man, that’s it,” he said. “It’s the Bay against L.A. It ain’t St. Louis against the Bay. It’s L.A. against the Bay. That’s what it’s all about. . . . It was a great rivalry. It’s like the Cowboys and the Redskins back in the ’80s. I don’t think it has that same thing anymore.”
That said, Dickerson isn’t entirely convinced the Rams will return.
“It’s all about the money,” he said. “Just like when they left, if it’s a good deal for them . . . I’ll say this much: I don’t think Stan Kroenke will be anybody’s tenant. I think he has to own it. That’s what made [Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones so great in Dallas. That’s his stadium. That’s his baby. And I think it would be the same thing with Stan Kroenke.”
Twitter: @LATimesfarmer
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