What happens if the Raiders are the odd team out?

REPORTING FROM HOUSTON —  NFL owners have yet to agree to a Los Angeles solution, but with many pushing for a marriage between the St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers, the Oakland Raiders could be the odd team out.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing for the Raiders.

The league, still debating a solution to end the two-decade L.A. vacancy, is determined to strike a bargain that ensures none of the three clubs walks away empty-handed.

If they were not given the green light to relocate to L.A., the Raiders could be compensated in a number of ways. Believed to be among the possible consolation prizes are the permission to move to a city other than L.A., perhaps with a reduced or waived relocation fee, and/or seed money to use toward a new stadium in Oakland or elsewhere.

One scenario would have the Raiders back-filling the St. Louis market should it be vacated by the Rams. St. Louis has done more than the other two cities to keep its NFL franchise, even though the league ultimately determined even that city’s stadium plan was not viable.

If the Rams were squeezed out of L.A., they could be in line for a similar package. They would take a long look at a vacated San Diego market, with the thought that they have the financial resources to develop a stadium that the Chargers couldn’t, and that they could recruit a fan base in San Diego, Orange County and L.A.

It is highly unlikely that the Chargers would be left out of an L.A. solution. If they were, that would mean that they had struck some type of accord to stay in San Diego, although there are no arrows pointing in that direction.