Talk of NFL Returning to L.A. Is a Yawner

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ... I’m sorry, I’ll try to snap out of it, but I’m just so tired of all this NFL nonsense, the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl, and slap me -- even Michael Ovitz apparently lives again.

We’ve got the Spanos Goofs who own the Chargers triggering an escape clause to their lease the day after another former San Diego owner, Donald Sterling, reminded us what a loser he is, and now comes a report NFL owners are really, really motivated -- as opposed to being really motivated the last time around -- to put a team in Los Angeles, which might not even be the Chargers.

I’m still trying to recover from Mark Ridley-Thomas/Eli Broad withdrawal, and now we have to go around this block again?

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OK, WE have three things at work here:

1) The Spanos Goofs, who might become better known as the Spanos Shysters by the time we’re done with them, have started the money-making process designed to pit San Diego against L.A. for their financial gain, which could result in that crummy team playing here in 2004. I don’t know -- the Pacific Ocean Shrimp just doesn’t have the same ring as the Mission Bay Shrimp.

2) A Rose Bowl group met with some of the league’s most influential owners in Florida this week, and dazzled them. There is a chance now the Rose Bowl will receive a 2008 or 2009 Super Bowl commitment from league owners at their annual meetings in Phoenix later this month -- even an outside chance a deal might be struck to deliver a team to a rebuilt Rose Bowl if ready for play by 2006.

3) Ovitz apparently has been brought back to provide comic relief.

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I WISH I could have seen the look on the faces of NFL owners when Ovitz, playing the role of Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” walked into their Palm Beach conference room this week with plans for a new football stadium in Carson.

That’s right, he’s still pitching, “The Hacienda,” or whatever he’s calling his Taco Bell-looking stadium plan, although it remains unclear if Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner and Jerry West are still partners. (I don’t know if you noticed or not, but Ovitz is listed as executive producer of the movie, “Gangs of Carson.” Oops! -- “Gangs of New York.”)

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NOW I have been following this “the NFL is coming back to L.A.” story since driving Georgia Frontiere to the airport in ’94. I mean I’ve pretty much heard it all, including Georgia’s run-down of each husband she had -- although to be honest, and this is a true story -- I had to cut her off after No. 3 (maybe it was No. 2) when she said she married him just for sex because it never happened with the previous husband. It was a good story, but I was on deadline.

So yes, I’m excited at the prospect of the NFL putting a team in a rebuilt Rose Bowl and playing the Super Bowl there every four or five years, but I seem to remember similar projects being pushed before. Ed Roski. Marvin Davis. Peter O’Malley. zzzzzzzzzzzzzI’m sorry, and Ron Burkle.

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THE NEXT chapter in this farcical saga will belong to the Spanos Goofs, Alex and son Dean. They announced Tuesday in the first sentence in a press release -- written by President Clinton’s and Gov. Gray Davis’ former image consultant -- that “the Chargers want to stay in San Diego,” and then a paragraph later told the city they were opting out of their stadium lease so they’d be free to leave.

I wouldn’t look for any final decision from the Spanos Goofs until at least January to keep the Chargers from becoming lame ducks during the 2003 season. That means you are going to read a lot about the Chargers indecisiveness for the next 10 monthszzzzzzzzzzzz.

And there is going to be no avoiding it because they’re coming to Carson this summer for training camp -- making it the official tug-of-war site between San Diego and L.A. when it comes to winning the team that always seems to lose.

San Diego has already talked about giving the Chargers a sweetheart land deal that could make the Goofs millions in addition to owning their crummy team. The small-town citizens of San Diego, who are fearful they will have no good reason to continue living without an NFL team, will be more likely to buckle under the pressure of last-minute deadlines and the sight of moving vans loading blocking sleds. That makes the little burg down south the early favorite to hold on to its crummy team.

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THE ROSE Bowl, meanwhile, has now reached favorite-site status in L.A. with league owners, who have fallen in and out of love previously with Hollywood Park, Dodger Stadium, Carson, the Coliseum and a downtown site.

The Rose Bowl’s new-fangled plan, which actually seems to be picking up steam, is to follow the same script used by Cleveland after losing the Browns to Baltimore: The Rose Bowl would be rebuilt in exchange for the NFL’s promise of putting a team in the stadium upon its completion in 2006.

This would allow the Colts and Saints to press for better deals in Indianapolis and New Orleans -- with one of them ultimately leaving the market that has gone sour to take advantage of a new stadium in Pasadena, which would also play host to Super Bowls every four or five years.

It all sounds good. It always does. Just remember to wake me when the opening kickoff is in the air.

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TODAY’S LAST resort comes in e-mail from Ben Dreyfuss:

“Yo, T.J., how bouts putting me in as today’s last word, huh? I think it might help me with the ladies.”

I’ve tried myself, and it’s never helped me to get the last word in with the ladies.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.