Dolphins owner sees NFL in LA ‘within five years’

Stephen Ross thinks the NFL will 'certainly' be in Los Angeles in five years. (USATSI)

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The possibility of an NFL team moving to Los Angeles looms on the horizon like a big, slow-moving cloud. Everyone thinks the league will end up with a presence in LA, but it could always just dissipate for a while.

Stephen Ross doesn't expect the pattern to break up and believes, per Kevin Clark of the Wall Street Journal, there will be an NFL team in Los Angeles "certainly within five years."

Ross, part of a 70-person group of NFL executives and coaches speaking at an NFL career symposium in Pennsylvania over the weekend, also said, of the NFL in LA, he can "see it coming."

But don't worry, Dolphins fans. This doesn't mean Ross is picking up his toys and heading as far away from Miami as United States geography will allow.

That LA team he sees coming won't be the a Dolphins, he emphasizes. But somebody.

— Kevin Clark (@KevinClarkWSJ) May 31, 2014

It wouldn't make sense for the Dolphins to leave. LA is a huge market, sure, but it's not like Miami is small. Additionally, the celebrity draw of Miami should keep Ross hanging around.

The Dolphins need only become a winner again and attendance will climb quickly.

The first part is easier said than done, but it's also precisely why a team in a smaller market struggling to win games and bring in fans could end up being lured to the bright lights and green glow of football in Los Angeles.