Chargers say they would welcome Joey Bosa if he signed contract

One of the big questions about the Joey Bosa holdout has been how his would-be Chargers teammates will react to him if he ever does sign. Those in the locker room contend, however, that this won’t be an issue.

“We all want him here. When he is here, he is one of us,” coach Mike McCoy said, via Jeremy Bergman of NFL Media. “It’s the business side of it. We can’t wait for him to be here and help us win football games this year. … I promise you he’s working his tail off wherever he is. He’s a very talented player.”

Tight end Antonio Gates, meanwhile, said the team would be accepting of Bosa as soon as he set foot in the locker room.

Antonio Gates said Joey Bosa will be "welcomed with open arms" by Chargers players. Said it's a cardinal rule: Bolts support each other.

— Tom Krasovic (@SDUTKrasovic) August 25, 2016

Things have gone very bad very publicly for Bosa and the Chargers, but it sounds like the players will at least be welcoming of Bosa – assuming he signs, that is.

Chargers go public with Joey Bosa contract stalemate, no deal close

The stalemate between the San Diego Chargers and top pick Joey Bosa has gone very public and has the potential to get very ugly.

Bosa turned down the latest offer from the Chargers, with the two sides “nowhere,” according to Michael Gehlken of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Chargers proposed to Joey Bosa what they made clear is their best offer, source says. It was declined. Offer pulled. Two sides are nowhere.

— Michael Gehlken (@sdutGehlken) August 24, 2016

The Chargers quickly released a statement that essentially threw Bosa under the bus big time.

Statement from the San Diego Chargers on defensive end Joey Bosa. pic.twitter.com/BayBGeN22x

— San Diego Chargers (@Chargers) August 24, 2016

Bosa certainly won’t be ready for the season now, and this has grown downright toxic. The team clearly feels they’ve given Bosa more than a fair offer, while Bosa reportedly feels that he’s been disrespected by the Chargers. No end appears to be in sight, and neither party, particularly Bosa, seems to be doing themselves any favors.

Joey Bosa reportedly will not report to Chargers camp amid contract dispute

Joey Bosa’s NFL career is off to an inauspicious start.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Bosa will not be in training camp on Friday as he still has not signed a rookie contract with the San Diego Chargers.

Bosa has already missed OTAs and the team’s mandatory minicamp, and now he’ll miss the start of training camp. The holdup is reportedly largely over the deferred payment of Bosa’s signing bonus. Offset language, which would allow the Chargers to pay the remaining portion of his salary instead of the entire thing should Bosa ever be released and sign with a new team, is also a sticking point.

“It really just comes down to generally this — there’s some things that are negotiable, and money always is negotiable, obviously — but there’s certain things in contracts language-wise, whether you’re picked third, 33rd or 203rd, there’s certain things of consistency and doing things the same way for everyone on the team,” Chargers GM Tom Telesco said earlier in the week, via ESPN’s Eric D. Williams. “And we’re far from uncommon with how we work. I know a lot of other teams probably operate the same way. We try to keep some things constant in everyone’s contract, whether you’re Philip Rivers or the 85th guy on the football team. So that’s kind of where we are. We’re still working through it.”

The Chargers targeted Bosa in the draft from the start. They probably didn’t bank on having such a hard time getting him into camp though.

Chargers were amused by lack of pre-draft links to Joey Bosa

The San Diego Chargers had Joey Bosa at the top of their draft board from January onward, and they did a fantastic job of hiding it.

The Chargers brass, including president John Spanos, GM Tom Telesco, and coach Mike McCoy, were in agreement that the Ohio State defensive lineman would be the favorite to go No. 3 to the Chargers provided he was there, and they knew it from the Fiesta Bowl onward, according to the team’s official site.

“Watching Joey play in the Fiesta Bowl, I left there thinking if he does declare, and if he is there at number three, we’ve got to take him,” Telesco said.

The Chargers did their research on Bosa and loved everything they heard, and by April, the front office had basically settled on Bosa. They even celebrated when Los Angeles and Philadelphia swung trades into the top two with the intention of picking quarterbacks, knowing those deals ensured that Bosa would be there for them at No. 3.

Despite all this, nobody ever caught on to San Diego’s plans.

“To be honest, nobody really asked me about Joey Bosa when it came to this draft class,” Telesco said. “And I wasn’t going to go out of my way to talk about him. But if someone asked about him, I would have talked about him.”

“It was amusing to see,” Spanos added. “We would sit back, read these mock drafts and see who people thought we would take. We would look around at each other and say, ‘Man, I can’t believe no one knows.'”

In fact, Bosa was a frequent mock choice for the Cowboys at No. 5, though it was reported before the draft that they didn’t want him. For all the inside sources and reports that fly around when the draft happens, it’s rather impressive that nobody ever caught on to San Diego’s plans.

Las Vegas mayor: City would look at Chargers if Raiders move falls through

The city of Las Vegas is clearly quite serious about getting an NFL team – so serious, in fact, that they’re formulating a backup plan if the proposed relocation of the Oakland Raiders doesn’t come to fruition.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman appeared on “The Dan Patrick Show” Thursday and divulged that if a Raiders move falls through, they’d definitely be interested in working with the Spanos family and the Chargers.

“My husband and I have had season tickets at the Chargers for the past 30-plus years and we would love that, and Alex Spanos already has some relationship with us here in the city. He’s been a developer for us in the ’70s and ’80s,” Goodman said. “I know they’re absolutely looking to move and that’s another place to go.”

It seems entirely likely at this point that the NFL will land in Vegas sooner rather than later. The Raiders are the more serious of the suitors at this moment in time, as is evidenced by some of Mark Davis’s recent actions. For now, the Chargers – and the league – appear focused on finding a solution to keep them in San Diego.

H/T ProFootballTalk

Roger Goodell implies new San Diego stadium will bring Super Bowl to city

There appears to be growing momentum to build a new stadium in San Diego to keep the Chargers there beyond the 2016 season, and Roger Goodell has added fuel to that fire.

The NFL commissioner was in San Diego on Saturday at the invitation of Chargers chairman Dean Spanos to speak to a rally of 4,000 fans who were attempting to gather signatures backing the effort to build a new stadium. Goodell told the assembled fans that if the Chargers get a new stadium, the league’s owners would likely be on board with bringing the Super Bowl back to San Diego for the first time since 2003.

“I’m confident that if they can get a stadium built here, the owners will want to support it with a Super Bowl,” Goodell said, via Eric D. Williams of ESPN. “I think that’s what this community deserves, and we’re all going to work to try and find a solution.”

If the new $1.8 billion stadium and convention center garners over 66,000 signatures in support, it will be passed off to the city council to either be voted on or put on the ballot in November.

“I think the Chargers belong in San Diego,” Goodell said. “I think this is a great community, a great fan base. Everyone has acknowledged that we need a new stadium.”

Even Spanos, who publicly flirted with a move to Los Angeles in 2015, sounded cautiously optimistic.

“We’re committed to follow this thing through,” Spanos said. “I’m optimistic and obviously overwhelmed today. I’m encouraged, but we still have a long ways to go.”

Perhaps Spanos’s assertions about staying in San Diego weren’t all talk. Maybe all this optimism will quiet some of the tensions between players and fans as well.

Report: Chargers willing to listen to offers for third pick in draft

The San Diego Chargers are willing to listen to any trade proposals that they receive for the third overall pick in the NFL Draft, according to a report.

Michael Gehlken of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Saturday that the Chargers are very much open to the possibility of trading the number three pick if the offer is right, according to a source.

Gehlken noted that this is par for the course for most teams, but also issued a reminder that the Chargers have gone that route before. San Diego had the first overall pick in both 2001 and 2004 and traded the pick both times.

The Chargers aren’t the only team with a high draft pick that has floated the possibility of moving out of that spot, as the Titans have done so as well. It sounds like both teams are just floating the possibility, and it’ll be a while before anything comes of it, if at all.