February 2, 2017 Page 3 Lightning Bolts Enter L.A. Area By Adam Serrao It may initially sound like it, but this isn’t about the nasty winter weather that has been raining down upon Los Angeles over the last few months. It is, however, about the city’s newest professional football team. That’s right, the Los Angeles Rams now have a new neighbor that will eventually become a roommate after the new, nearly $3 billion stadium is finished in Inglewood. Almost two weeks ago to the day, chairman Dean Spanos announced that the team formerly known as the San Diego Chargers will move to Los Angeles and become known as the Los Angeles Chargers. With the highly controversial decision, Spanos brought a second NFL team to the nation’s second-largest media market for the first time since 1994. It used to be the Rams and the Raiders who shared the Los Angeles area some 23 years ago. While the Raiders moved back to Oakland and seem to now be destined for Las Vegas, the Rams left for St. Louis only to come back and call Southern California home once again. Many people seem to forget, however, that it was the Chargers who were born in Los Angeles in 1960 only to move down the 5 freeway into San Diego the next year when Barron Hilton made it so. Hilton probably had no idea that the Chargers would ever be back in Los Angeles, but alas almost 60 years later the Bolts now boast a new beginning. There are two sides to every story and that remains true with the tale that led up to Spanos decreeing in statement that “today, we turn the page and begin an exciting new era as the Los Angeles Chargers.” The first side of the story is the one of which fans down in San Diego are currently most passionate. They can’t believe that the team the Spanos family bought in 1984 that gave the city of San Diego a unique identity, along with their trademark powder blue jerseys, has now abandoned them. The other side of the story, however, is the one told by Spanos himself--the chairman who has been fighting with San Diego city officials for almost 20 years now to get a new stadium only to be basically laughed at while any ideas of funding were quickly and consistently thrown out of the window. Once Spanos officially announced the team’s move, fans took to Chargers Park in San Diego to put their disappointment on display. Some set jerseys on fire while others threw banners to the floor as fans passionately found ways to react to the news that had ripped their football team away from San Diego. Even Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, who has publicly been a proponent of the Chargers remaining in San Diego, had his say about the move. “I’m a little numb about it all,” he explained. “It hasn’t really settled in. I hope that when the dust does settle that the people that have been fans here for a long time can still watch a game on Sunday and go, ‘Hey, that’s our quarterback.’” While a great number of fans obviously were and will continue to remain sick about the move, Spanos had almost no other choice. Like with all things in sports, beyond the game being played, there is also a business to be run. That being said, Spanos had no other viable business decision but to move to Los Angeles once the other NFL owners and the City of San Diego denied him any additional help with funding. Spanos’ allotted time given by the league to make a decision had run out. The City of San Diego was giving Spanos absolutely no help and even a measure that would have taxed local hotels higher to help pay for a new stadium was shot down. Spanos was down to two decisions: Either move to Los Angeles to join the Rams, or be forced to indefinitely keep his business at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, which opened in 1967. If you’ve ever been to Qualcomm Stadium, you can certainly see why Spanos chose to move. The venue is completely outdated and needs an entire top-to-bottom renovation. The arena is also consistently filled with fans of opposing teams and has even drawn the ire of current NFL players who may love the city but also feel like they might as well be playing at a high school venue. StubHub Center in Carson may not be much better for the time being. The Chargers’ new temporary home seats less than 30,000 people, so tickets will almost assuredly be at a premium as well. That’s not to mention the fact that the Chargers will still struggle to attract and maintain a home crowd to support their team. Once the new stadium is built in Inglewood, however, the Chargers will move into one of the nicest stadiums in the world and will see their value as an organization rise through the roof. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell put it perfectly when in a statement he said, “Relocation is painful for teams and communities. It is especially painful for fans, and the fans in San Diego have given the Chargers strong and loyal support for more than 50 years, which makes it even more disappointing that we could not solve the stadium issue. As difficult as the news is for Chargers fans, I know Dean Spanos and his family did everything they could to try to find a viable solution in San Diego.” The pain will certainly remain for most Charger fans who have held the team near and dear to their hearts for so long. Winning, though, cures all pains in the world of sports and now it is up to Spanos to find a way to field a successful team so that the Chargers can officially begin to put their relocation to Los Angeles in the rearview mirror. Asixlion@earthlink.net • Patriots Are Back at It Again By Adam Serrao Another Super Bowl is quickly approaching in the NFL and the New England Patriots have made themselves relevant once again. It seems like at the start of every single football season you can pretty much pencil in Bill Belichick and Tom Brady to at least be a part of the championship conversation. Every sport needs its enemy. If you’re not a Patriots fan, then they surely fit the definition in the football world. Despite how much you may hate New England, though, you certainly have to respect the way that the team that calls Foxborough, Massachusetts home has dominated the league over what has now nearly been the past two decades. Opponents of the Patriots’ success will argue that they are cheaters. People who hate the team will go through a prearranged list in their heads of all of the times that Brady and Belichick were either caught or accused of cheating. While some of those accusations may be somewhat correct, you don’t get to where the Patriots have been based purely on malicious intent and wrongdoing. On the contrary, New England has gotten to where it is now--on the brink of Super Bowl LI- -because of success. This Sunday’s Super Bowl LI will be Brady’s 34th career postseason game, which extends a record set by the quarterback that will likely take a very, very long time to be broken. All in all, it will be Brady’s seventh Super Bowl appearance. Yet despite all of the success, the quarterback still finds a way to keep his team first. “It’s pretty cool for our team to be able to accomplish this,” Brady explained. “I think we’ve done a good job taking advantage of our opportunities. It’s a pretty mentally and physically tough team that has proven itself over the course of a long season.” The team hasn’t only proven itself over the course of a long season, but also over time--ever since Brady’s first championship game in Super Bowl XXXVI against the St. Louis Rams and a team that called itself “the greatest show on turf.” Ever since that game and first-ever Super Bowl win for Brady, his Patriots have been the greatest show in the The Jewelry Source 337 Main St. El Segundo. 310-322-7110 www.jewelrysourceUSA.com NFL. It’s a designation that New England will certainly be looking to strengthen even more so when the team takes on the highflying Atlanta Falcons and top candidate for this year’s MVP award, Matt Ryan. Ryan and the Falcons have the best offense in all of football this year. Behind offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, who was one of the highest-rated candidates for a head coaching job heading into next year, Atlanta can certainly put points up on the board. Aaron Rodgers found that fact out first-hand two weeks ago when the Falcons held a 24-0 lead at halftime and went on to hang 44 points up on Green Bay’s head with a 23-point victory in the NFC Championship game. Star wide receiver Julio Jones and a two-headed rushing attack behind Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, among many other explosive options, will certainly be looking to repeat that performance in Houston this weekend. Despite Atlanta’s top-ranked offensive production this year, you know the old saying, “defense wins championships.” Many people don’t think of New England’s defense as being one of the best in football this year, but the team does in fact own the NFL’s top scoring defense in allowing only 15.6 points per game. The Patriots also rank eighth in yards allowed per game at 326.4. Belichick and his New England team have only had the league’s top-ranked defense on one other occasion in team history. The Patriots also won the Super Bowl that year. “They have very good players all around,” Shanahan explained. “Players that are interchangeable that can be pass-rushers, that can be linebackers, that can be corners, that can be safeties. And they have an extremely good scheme. So it’s by far the biggest challenge we’ve had this year.” The Falcons will undoubtedly rely on their offense to try to come out on top of that challenge. Atlanta’s offense has faced three top-10 scoring defenses this year and has averaged 25 points per game in those contests. The team has scored 30-plus points in its last six games and has been averaging 40 points per game in the playoffs this year. It’s safe to say that See Patriots, page 4 Also Available in Sterling Silver and Blue Topaz. Prices starting at $165.00. ©2007 One Stop Shopping for Valentine’s Day! 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