Former NFL stadiums and what those properties look like now
The realignment of the divisions in 2002 was the last league-wide decision that made sense. That was still in Tags’ time as commish and the league hadn’t become a serious question mark in terms of integrity yet.
It made zero sense to call our old division the NFC “West” when two of its four teams weren’t anywhere near the West. Granted, the previous divisional setup was a result of the political-style dealmaking that had to happen in the late ‘60s to make the AFL-NFL merger work in the first place.
A crucial part of that deal-making, in ensuring Congress allowed the AFL-NFL merger with the anti-trust exemption is that Rozelle had or maybe, according to Dave Dixon's view, "forced" to give New Orleans an expansion franchise on a timetable that he didnt necessarily set or agree to, but had to compromise with powerful La. politicians, Hale Boggs and Senator Russell Long, and verbally commit to, to save and help promote NFL towards becoming this nation's most popular sport by mid-70's. I've always suspected Rozelle held a portion of private resentment towards New Orleans and the Saints franchise because our existence was due to hard-fought, bitterly negotiated compromises needed for a larger, more essential goal.
I'm not saying Rozelle was opposed to the idea of an New Orleans NFL team, clearly he had seen and knew about how successful and popular many of our exhibition pre-season games had been with Packers at Tulane Stadium in the early 60's and that wed come very close to bringing the old AFL's Houston Texans to town after the 1962 season (it mightve succeeded if some of the Tulane executive board of directors had been more "openly receptive" to the idea, since most were strong NFL supporters.) But Rozelle liked doing things mostly centered around his own time-table and without allowing outside or owner interference dictating or altering his decision-making.
That's eventually why he developed a decades-long, life-long antagonistic feud with Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis on competition issues, Davis' initial 1980 relocation threat that dragged out in federal court for two years in L.A. (one Davis won), and later on, having to deal with contensious labor issues in the 1980's over issues that his successor would agree to concerning unrestricted free agency, a general salary cap, and more occasional franchise relocation like the St. Louis football Cardinals moving to Arizona, Baltimore Colts painful, cruel move to Indy in late January 1984, eventually Cleveland Browns moving to Baltimore, becoming the Ravens, and Cleveland given a expansion team but with old team name, colors, uniforms, history, but being mostly a limping, helpless, shell of a once-great franchise that's been mostly terrible the last 25 years until very recently.