Mid-day talker: Goodell says NFL team in LA would probably be expansion team

Per FoxSports.com:

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league would need to expand to 34 teams if a Los Angeles franchise was admitted to the competition.

In Thursday night's interview on NBC Sports' "Costas Live" program, Goodell said the league did not want to expand to 33 teams and did not want to see any other franchises relocate to Los Angeles.

"We want to keep our teams where they are," he said, adding that two teams would need to be added to the list of 32 franchises, presumably to prevent the scheduling problems an uneven number of teams would cause.

Asked how soon a Los Angeles team could be playing, Goodell said he believed the two groups working on plans to develop a stadium in the city had a great deal of potential.

There of course still exists the potential that L.A. could land two franchises eventually, but the combination of Goodell's preference that a team placed in Los Angeles be an expansion team and his notion that he doesn't want to see franchises move would seem to bode well for Vikings fans in Minnesota. What it means for the stadium debate, of course, is another question.