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http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/12/17/nfl-lo ... rs-raiders

Rams, Chargers, Raiders feeling effects of Los Angeles relocation talk

SI senior writer Don Banks looks at the possibility of Los Angeles having an NFL team next season and explains why the San Diego Chargers are in the best position to move.

BY DON BANKS

Posted: Thu Dec. 17, 2015Updated: Fri Dec. 18, 2015

It has already been 20 years ago last month since Browns owner Art Modell sparked a firestorm for the ages and earned himself instant vilification with the stunning midseason announcement that his flagship franchise was forsaking Cleveland for Baltimore at the close of that 1995 season, a relocation so jarring and traumatic that the reverberations were seemingly endless.

The Browns bolting for Baltimore set the standard for all NFL relocation dramas, a fact I’m reminded of this week as the Rams and Chargers both prepare to play their final home games of the season in Week 15 amid the teams’ relocation efforts, with the Raiders on tap to do likewise next Thursday night. The coming eight days on the NFL schedule could well give us the last glimpse of two of those teams in their home markets. In the case of the Chargers, Sunday would effectively end a 55-season stay in San Diego that has spanned generations.

There has been nothing, of course, in the way of a Cleveland-like out-of-the-blue development in the Rams, Chargers and Raiders’ pursuit of the vacant Los Angeles market, a painfully slow, incremental saga that has been in the works for years now. The Browns’ 1995 season was blown to bits when Modell revealed his shocking intentions on Nov. 6 of that year, with Cleveland sitting 4–4 and tied for first place in the AFC Central before the news broke, then immediately going into a 1–7 death spiral that sent the Browns to a 5–11, fourth-place finish in the division, ahead of only expansion Jacksonville.