Thursday Night Fever

NFL commissioner says LA won’t get a team soon, but his league’s channel will get more games

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS

Sorry, Los Angeles. The only NFL expansion happening anytime soon is to next season’s schedule of Thursday night games.

During his annual Super Bowl news conference, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Friday there hasn’t been any discussion about adding to the league’s 32 teams, and indicated he’s not too keen about the idea of shifting a franchise, either.

“We have not talked about expansion in the league at all. It has not been on our agenda. It is not something we’ve focused on with our membership. And I don’t see that in the foreseeable future,” Goodell said. “We want to keep our teams where they are.

“We believe that’s healthier for the league in the long term. We’re working to get stadiums built and make sure we do whatever we can to make sure those teams are successful in those communities.”

Los Angeles, the second-largest market in the U.S., has been without an NFL team since the Rams and Raiders left after the 1994 season.

“We would like to be back in Los Angeles, if we can do it correctly,” Goodell said. “There are a lot of issues that have to be balanced there.”

He announced that every club will appear on prime-time TV in 2012, thanks in part to a new slate of Thursday games that now will be scheduled from Week 2 through Week 15. NBC will air a game on Thanksgiving night; the other 12 Thursdays will go on the NFL Network, which aired eight games in 2011.

“We think it’s great for the fans, for the teams — and great for the network,” Goodell said.

He discussed a wide variety of issues during his 45-minute session with reporters, touching on topics such as concussions, testing players for human growth hormone, and games in England, Mexico and elsewhere.

Asked about an Associated Press story this week based on interviews with a dozen former players, including Hall of Fame member Tony Dorsett, who have filed lawsuits against the league related to concussions, Goodell said: “We will always make sure that player health and safety is the No. 1 priority in the NFL.”

Goodell said the NFL would like to start testing for HGH this offseason; the league and players haven’t been able to resolve an impasse even though the new, 10-year collective bargaining agreement added that performance-enhancer to the drug program.

On Thursday, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith said: “No one will bully us into a test.”

“We have been working to try to address the issues the union has raised,” Goodell said. “We believe the science is clear.”