L.A. has accepted the loss of the NFL

It's usually the first question when traveling if L.A. is mentioned: "When are you folks going to get an NFL team?"

It seems to be a big concern to people living elsewhere, but the answer around here is usually the same: "Who cares?"

Given all the wasted rhetoric to date, it's like waiting for Beckham to make an impact. The interest is long gone.

The NFL is staying here in Dana Point at a palace this week but remains as out of touch with L.A. and clueless as it has been since the departure of the Rams and Raiders more than 14 years ago.

Cities such as Cleveland, Baltimore and St. Louis had NFL teams, lost them and fought like crazy to get another. You live in one of those cities, and you need a good reason to shovel your way out of the driveway.

Around here, though, it's as if the NFL is dead and buried, the five stages of death eventually leading to acceptance, which is where L.A. sits after experiencing denial, anger, bargaining and depression.

In the beginning there was certainly denial, the Raiders and Rams pulling out and most everyone believing the NFL would be back the following year or shortly thereafter.

Then there was anger, and the popular opinion "the NFL needs L.A. more than L.A. needs the NFL."

The bargaining that followed, including pitches by Eli Broad, Michael Ovitz, Ron Burkle and Ed Roski, at one point NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue standing in front of the Coliseum and announcing the league was returning to L.A.

Depression for some, most notably Broad, Ovitz, Burkle and Roski, followed when the NFL changed course and gave L.A.'s team to Houston.

And so here we are -- acceptance now that life is just fine without the NFL, in retrospect so little missed the last 14 years.

No one here has to awake every morning wondering which one of our NFL players was arrested the night before for drunk driving or abusing the women in their lives.

The NFL likes to believe the promise of a Super Bowl or Super Bowls will have a city jumping at the chance to help them build a new stadium, but whether the game is played in the Coliseum or Detroit, it looks the same while lounging on the couch.

Everywhere else there is an NFL team they are now being peppered with labor talk and the possibility of the owners locking out the players before the start of the 2011 season.

At the same time they are readying fans and sponsors to be hit up for more money with talk of an 18-game schedule.