Eric Flack gives Rooster some new info on Gov. Wes Moore's potential role in RFK land bill opposition

First Maryland wanted fighter jets – or, more precisely, the one of DC’s Air National Guard squadrons with them re-located to the WHAT State – to have their Senators vote for the RFK bill in some sort of coming omnibus…and now the Governor is chiming in?

Indeed, as WUSA’s Eric Flack, still reporting on RFK while in Florida, told Chris Russell Thursday that Maryland’s delegation will vote to block the bill unless Gov. Wes Moore is ‘satisfied’ with some things surrounding the thought.

“They are really concerned out there in Prince George's County about what would happen to the Northwest Stadium site if, in fact, the Commanders leave for the District,” Flack told Rooster. “I think that if you read the room, it's pretty clear that most people understand that DC and the RFK site, no matter what the Commanders say publicly in their statements, is their first choice, and id they get the land control that we've been talking about for so long, it’s gonna be full steam ahead to get a deal done with DC to bring Commanders back to RFK – and I think the people in PG County know that.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell being at the Titans game and then lobbying on Capitol Hill with Commanders ownership the next day sort of made that obvious, and it’s understandable that Moore would be concerned that the site would become hundreds of acres of nothing, barely 30 years after previous government re-configured the Beltway to accommodate a new exit for what was a farm.

“I think it’s a very fair question whatever happens if you’re Wes Moore, the leadership of PG County, and the Senators who represent Maryland, of what happens to that land,” Flack said. “When it was built, Jack Kent Cooke and the Governor at the time promised a whole bunch of economic development in that area that, as we know, never came – and now, all these decades later, they're still trying to figure out how to turn that area around economically, outside of the eight to 10 days a year you’re guaranteed to get a huge amount of influx in the form of tax revenue from games.”

The questions are similar to any land that is vacated, from how and when the stadium is demolished to what goes there in its place to is it just straight up sold, and right now, people there don’t feel good about the answers from what Flack is hearing – not just because of lost revenue, but also given the state of the CURRENT RFK Stadium site and what it has looked like over recent years.

“I mean, option A is to keep the Commanders there. They have this project we’ve reported in the past called the Blue Line Corridor where they have the opportunity to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into making that what people hoped it would have been 25 years ago when the stadium first came under Jack Kent Cooke,” Flack said. “They see the vision of what that Blue Line Corridor could be, and if you build a modern stadium with the retractable roof, with the hospitality area, with the village and the bars and the restaurants, that could be the anchor for that entire Blue Line Corridor redevelopment project. It would like a shot of steroids for the entire project, making it a near-slam dunk success. But, if that’s not going to happen, I think people are very realistic about the fact of what's going to happen if DC gets this land and can move forward with the Commanders, and from geographical sense, that land is placed in a critical area for all of Prince George's County, the entire Blue Line Corridor.”

And that seems to be why new opposition is creeping in.

“I’ve reported on this for some time about the Senators starting to say, whoa, we're not down with this, but what is new is one person compared Gov. Moore to the wizard behind the curtain, the guy you don't see getting involved in all this, who in fact is kind of pulling all the strings behind the scenes,” Flack said. “He’s telling these Maryland Senators you better fight for us, and whatever sort of arrangement they have, according to my sources, they’ve bought on and said basically, you have to make this right with Wes Moore to get us on board.”

Interesting to Rooster, and likely to many, given how involved Moore has been with the Commanders and their fan base, including his weekly spot with BMitch & Finlay on our airwaves – so could there be a compromise like one Chris suggested: build a new Commanders Park, move that staff from Ashburn, and build a village around that?

“I can tell you there have been those conversations, and I can't go too far down that road because I think a lot of those conversations are still private, but what people close to me are saying is that we have been talking about doing exactly what you're suggesting,” Flack said. “It might not be nightlife or sports or entertainment, but I think they have a very clear-cut vision for what could be built there in its place, and I think they have a vision where it could be something that is uniquely different but almost equally good in a completely different sort of way. Those conversations are already ongoing, and I think part of the frustration is that the Commanders are already planning to make sure that if they leave, they won’t leave that land barren, so I think they are a bit perplexed that it's gotten to this point.”