'Official: NFL to play in Los Angeles next season'

Well, that was the headline the San Gabriel Tribune ran last week. "We are going to have a team here next September," John Semcken said. Semcken is the VP of Majestic Realty, Developer Ed Roski Jr.'s development company that plans on building a new NFL stadium... in Diamond Bar some 26 miles East of Downtown (last month they were saying city of Industry).

Not only are they optimistic that we'll be getting a NFL team here, they believe we could get two of them.

And for a stadium that hasn't broken ground yet, there's no way a team could be playing in it by next September. But that's why they plan on using the Rose Bowl for a couple of years. Of course, they will have to go through a series of approvals to get that such as dealing with UCLA and the city of Pasadena.

And as for what teams, Roski said it could be the New Orleans Saints, Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders or San Francisco 49ers. LAist Sports Editor Jimmy Bramlett looked into the possibility of these teams last month.

If this is really happening, it's going to be quite a year of building up to it. As the SG Tribune said yesterday in an editorial, this "is somewhat mind-boggling and on the surface beyond belief."

Photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP