Raiders, Seahawks paired for London debut
The NFL is heading to a new destination in London, and the first matchup at English Premier League club Tottenham will be the Oakland Raiders against the Seattle Seahawks in October.
That’s if the 60,000-plus capacity stadium, which has been designed to accommodate soccer and NFL, is completed in time for Week 6.
While Tottenham is sure that building work is on schedule on the White Hart Lane site where its previous stadium was demolished last year, the NFL has contingency plans to move the Oct. 14 game to Wembley Stadium.
The home of the England national soccer team is where the NFL will be staging another two games after Raiders-Seahawks match-up, giving London three consecutive weeks of American football for the first time.
The Philadelphia Eagles will play the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Tennessee Titans will take on the Los Angeles Chargers. The NFL is yet to decide which game will be on Oct. 21 in Week 7 and which slots into Week 8 on Oct. 28.
“It’s a great learning for us, it’s another test for us,” the NFL’s executive vice president of international, said Thursday at the site of Tottenham’s new stadium. “If we were ever to put a franchise in the UKwe would need to know we can do three consecutive weekends.”
The NFLhad planned to stage two games in the 2018 season at Tottenham, which was runner-up in the Premier League last season. But Tottenham, which is using Wembley as its own temporary home this season, doesn’t want the burden of two NFL fixtures when it is still settling into its new, unnamed stadium.
Tottenham has signed a 10-year contract for games with the NFL.
The new stadium was designed with NFL-sized changing rooms and to ensure the grass soccer pitch can be retracted and kept under lights below the stands when the artificial surface is required for NFL.
The NFL said it will investigate whether the Raiders violated the “Rooney Rule” when they hired as coach.
The Fritz Pollard Alliance called for the investigation Wednesday out of concern that Raiders owner Mark Davis came to an agreement with Gruden before the team interviewed any minority candidates as required by the NFL since 2003.
NFL spokesman said in a statement that the NFL will “look into this.”
The Fritz Pollard Alliance is dedicated to promoting diversity and equality of job opportunity in the coaching, front office and scouting staffs of NFL teams.
Davis said Tuesday at the news conference introducing Gruden as the team’s new coach that he had been trying to make the move for six years and finally believed it would happen after a meeting in Philadelphia on Christmas Eve, the day before Gruden worked a game between the Raiders and Eagles on ESPN. Raiders general manager
said Tuesday he interviewed two minority candidates before Gruden’s hiring was announced. Those candidates were Oakland tight ends coach and Southern California offensive coordinator Tee Martin.
The Raiders haven’t commented on the request from the Fritz Pollard Alliance.
Former New England Patriots tight end s life and death will be the subject of a one-hour special episode of “48 Hours” to be broadcast on Jan. 20.
The CBS program will be told by best-selling author who is writing a book about Hernandez.
Once one of the top players in the NFL, Hernandez was convicted for the murder of
who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée. Hernandez hanged himself at the age of 27 in the Massachusetts prison cell where he was serving a life sentence. After his death, he was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which can cause depression and violent mood swings.
Patterson calls it “the most fascinating, complicated and troubling crime story of our times.”
The book “All-American Murder” is due out Jan. 22.
The Turner family could be growing within the Carolina Panthers organization.
The team is interviewing for its vacant offensive coordinator position, said a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday on condition of anonymity because the team does not discuss potential coaching candidates. The Panthers fired offensive coordinator
and quarterbacks coach on Tuesday, two days after a playoff loss to the Saints.
If the 65-year-old Turner is hired, he’s expected to bring in his son Scott as quarterbacks coach. is an offensive analyst at the University of Michigan and previously worked for the Panthers as an offensive quality control coordinator from 2011-12.