NFL commissioner pledges to help keep Raiders in Oakland

 (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

The first question Roger Goodell faced Friday was a familiar one: what about the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers now that the Rams are back in Los Angeles.

As he’s been saying all week, the commissioner pledged “to do everything possible” to help get new stadiums built in their current cities.

“The league supports both of these teams, but we are working very hard with not only the teams but the communities to try to find a solution that works for everybody,” he said. “This has to work for the communities, and it has to work for the teams long-term”

For San Diego, which has first dibs on joining the Rams in Los Angeles, the path looks clear: come up with a stadium deal (Downtown or Mission Valley) and put a measure on the November ballot for voters to decide whether they want to help pay for it.

Oakland may be a tougher nut to crack considering that polls have shown little voter support for helping pay for a new stadium. So how can the NFL really help?

I asked NFL Senior Vice President Eric Grubman Friday about past reports that the league would consider developing a stadium in Oakland. The NFL had looked into to buying the Inglewood land, which the Rams later acquired.

Is there a real possibility that NFL would play the role of stadium developer:   “It’s real if the team owner wanted us to do it … If there is an incumbent team we would never do it unless the incumbent team wanted us to take a look at it

How about the fact that there’s already Levi’s stadium in the market and the Raiders proposed stadium is likely too small to host a Super Bowl: “That would all impact the judgment of whether the league wanted to get involved or not”

Is Mark Davis interested in the league helping develop a stadium: “I would defer to the team.”

Couple other tidbits from Grubman:

He’s not meeting with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf while in town this week.

If the Chargers stay in San Diego, he said the Raiders wouldn’t need extensive league review to exercise they’re LA option as long as the sharing agreement with the Rams is in accord with what was discussed during the January owners meeting. “They would need approval anyway but it would be ministerial unless they were dramatically changing the circumstances,” he said.

On development rights still being the best mechanism for funding an Oakland stadium: “It’s been probably two months or so since I’ve really been into that conversation so I don’t really know where it is.”