Advice to NFL: Look Elsewhere

Orange County is the coolest place in the country. It is.

There seems no doubt now that Orange County’s bid for an NFL expansion franchise is going nowhere and for that we should be extraordinarily grateful.

Because the NFL is just not cool. It isn’t.

Did you notice that there was a 44-year-old starting quarterback last weekend? And the NFL wants to add another team? What, is Joe Namath going to be drafted?

Let’s see. For the honor of being the 32nd team in a league where television ratings are falling faster than the stock market did earlier this month, these bidders from Southern California and Houston are being told to write a check no smaller than $476 million and hand it over.

There had been an Orange County interest in this process, but it was the two Los Angeles bids--Michael Ovitz and his Carson stadium and The New Coliseum Partners, who want to spruce up the, yes, Coliseum--which seem to have passed desperate Houston in this race for what the NFL is saying will be the last franchise awarded for many years.

Which leads to this question. What are they thinking in Houston? Smartly, no one in Houston allowed themselves to cave into Bud Adams’ threats. Houston let the Oilers mosey on to Nashville.

The NFL has not taken Tennessee by storm, by the way. College football is still the thing. Always will be.

The NFL should pay Orange County $476 million to tear up some real estate and build a stadium and ruin our Sunday afternoons by making sure we always have to watch the games of some horrendous expansion team on television instead of the occasional good NFL game.

So that’s why it might be better if Houston wins this battle. If we want to flip on the tube on Sunday mornings and afternoons to see an NFL game that’s worth watching, then at least it would be nice to see the best games available.

Denver versus Jacksonville was supposed to be a good game last weekend, by the way. That lasted for about, oh, 10 minutes.

But we’re too smart here to grovel for some team that might have a senior citizen quarterback. Or a midget quarterback (see: Doug Flutie). Or a construction worker quarterback (see: Randall Cunningham, who had become his own home repairman until the Vikings pulled him out of retirement).

The NFL should have to pay Orange County $476 million if there’s even a chance that the new team will have an owner. And all teams must have an owner. Orange County knows about NFL owners. Orange County has seen Georgia Frontiere and it has shuddered. It has covered its eyes when Al Davis tried to walk in.

Calls were put in to a couple of Orange County mayors, in Anaheim and Irvine, with a request to chat about the NFL and whether Orange County should feel bad about missing out.

These calls weren’t even returned, which shows extreme good sense on the part of Tom Daly and Christina Shea. Trying to convince an NFL team to come to our county really isn’t worth talking about.

Did you know that two years ago Gary, Ind., perhaps the most distressed city in the country, a city abandoned by the steel mills and then by most of its population, a town with a nearly vacant downtown, passed when the Bears came calling and wondered if Gary would be honored to have the Bears.

And the Bears aren’t an expansion team. The Bears are history, the Monsters of the Midway, the holders of the George Halas legacy. Despite that, in a poll taken this year in Chicago, 57% of the respondents said that keeping the Bears in Chicago is “not important.”

You know what made Gary, Ind., much happier than the Bears?

Casinos.

Casinos come to town, they pay the city millions of dollars to be allowed to come to town. The NFL wants the city to pay it millions of dollars.

But gambling is bad, you say? Casinos bring gambling?

Well, guess what. So does the NFL.

Granted, this is not a scientific sampling. But on a little walk around the South Coast Plaza the other night, 15 people (nine of them men) were stopped and asked if they wanted the NFL to come to Orange County. Ten said they didn’t want the NFL at all. Two said they didn’t care. Three said they were all for it.

It was worth having Gene Autry bring major league baseball to Anaheim. This made Orange County a major league town. Having the Mighty Ducks and the Pond along with them? Great. An NHL team brings a touch of winter to the beach and the Pond means events like the Wooden Classic.

Begging for an NFL team, though? Why bother?

Better to turn up our collective noses and go the mall, to the beach, to the mountains or the pool. Go hiking or biking, sailing or tanning. Let the NFL hold up somebody else. Let’s just keep being the coolest place around. Just say no to the NFL.