2009 LONDON PARTICIPANTS TO BE ANNOUNCED TODAY

A reader has forwarded to us a link to the NFL’s official United Kingdom web site, which states that the announcement of the two teams who’ll play in London during the 2009 regular season will be made later today. As a practical matter, it means that folks in one NFL city will learn that they’ll be able to attend only seven home games next year. (Unless they go to the England game.) Based on our discussions with various league insiders, it appears that the identity of the participants is currently known only by employees of the two teams who’ll be playing in England, and that the other 30 teams generally haven’t been given the identity of the teams -- or even informed that the announcement would be made today. The Dolphins “hosted” the Giants at Wembley Stadium in 2007. The Chargers “visited” the Saints there in 2008. Based on this year’s effort to export an exciting game and given the history of interconference contests, we suggest Ravens at Vikings for 2009. The game would feature young stars like Joe Flacco and Adrian Peterson and two stout defenses. And the low-scoring field-position battle would be a nice contrast to the Arena League scoreboard-breaker that San Diego and New Orleans put together earlier this year. Commissioner Roger Goodell has said repeatedly that he would like to expand the NFL’s regular season to 17 or 18 games, which would allow multiple teams to play annual neutral-site games without losing one of the eight current home games.