VJ91

http://www.niagara-gazette.com/local/local..._038232418.html Says Majority Leader Richard Updegrove, R-Lockport. “I think, most importantly, we would want to have some sort of cost-benefit analysis.”....Updegrove, a Bills backer who believes losing the team would be a terrible blow to the region’s economy, said he’s willing to discuss any plan to keep the Bills in Western New York, but not at the expense of his constituents. “We’ve been having some real tight budgets in Niagara County recently,” he said. “It’s likely, if we were to have something like this, taxpayer subsidies would be involved.” Mr. Fitzgerald might want to put a hold on his bronze hero's statue he hopes to erect in front of the Niagara Bills Stadium down the street from the casino.

Get some pro-active politicians and business people together, much like the "Business Backs The Bills" group of the late 90's. Work out a tax plan or fund raising plan to make some guarantees to Ralph Wilson now, and extend them to whoever ends up buying the Bills after Ralph dies. Number one: guarantee sell out revenue of every home game played. Number two: guarantee to pay all stadium related costs. Number three: guarantee zero cost to the Bills for the next 50 years on a new lease for RWS or any possible new stadium that gets built. Number four: guarantee to subsidize to the Bills up to the average ticket price of every team in the NFL. Number five: guarantee to subsidize to the Bills up to the average NFL team revenue of un-shared premium seats and luxury boxes. By guaranteeing that the Buffalo Bills will always earn at least as much as an average NFL team earns, every year for the next 50 years, is really the only way I can see any owner after Ralph even considering keeping the franchise in the Buffalo area. Who pays for all those subsidies and revenue guarantees? WE DO. Set up a "Bills Fan tax fund." Give every tax payer in New York State the option of contributing to the fund or not. Find out how many fans are willing to contribute, add up the total annual costs of subsidizing the Bills up to an average NFL team, and divide that cost by the number of fans. Sounds crazy and strange and impossible? Well so does the "Niagara Bills" kiss-up plan to Canada!

We don't hate Toronto, Toronto hates us. What I hate, is the idea of the Buffalo Bills ever being called anything other then the Buffalo Bills. If they leave Buffalo, so be it. If the economy continues to sink, the entire NFL might fold before the Bills leave town. But Cleveland fought to keep the Browns name after the team left for Baltimore, and I think Buffalo should fight just as hard to keep Buffalo in front of their name.

My vote for "other or trade down" makes it the top choice so far. I selected it because until the Bills address FA, who knows what they will do in the draft?

That's funny, Woodson didn't win any SB's during his career in Pittsburgh either. In fact, he only played in one, while the Woodson-less Bills played in four. Even worse, Woodson's only SB with the Steelers was their one loss, of the 7 SBs they have played in. Woodson might have been on the Ravens when they won in 2000, but I don't remember. Let's face it, you can exchange players and coaches all you want and say those Bills would have won a SB. Bottom line? Norwood missed a 47 yard field goal with 4 seconds left in their first SB, and if he makes that kick, who knows how many SB's the Bills might have won after that?

I wouldn't waste my time saying "Niagara Bills" 1,000 times until it "rolled off my tongue." I'm with Jim Kelly, on this one... it's Buffalo Bills or nothing as far as I'm concerned. Niagara County and the idea guy from Michigan like to compare this grand scheme to Boston changing their name to the New England Pats. There's a couple of huge differences here. First of all, the New England region brings together 5 neighboring states, all of which consider Boston their hub. The Niagara region is trying to bring in Canada, another country that pretty much despises Buffalo. This guy, originally from Michigan, is pandering to the Canandian side of the Falls all the way to Toronto, bribing them by promising to change the name of the team to Niagara, from Buffalo. Those fans came right out and admitted it, they would have no interest in going to a sparkling brand new state of the art domed stadium 45 minutes closer to them unless the Bills changed their name to Niagara. Pathetic. It would be like losing the Bills to.............Niagara Falls? Secondly, Boston built little Schaffer Stadium and changed their name to New England almost 40 years ago. Today, despite all the alleged wealth and millionaires that litter the highways of Southern Ontario, Niagara County and New York State would still be stuck footing the bill for the stadium! With new stadiums being built right now for the Giants, Yankees and Mets, who in the world is going to back this crazy idea up in Albany? And I have one question for all the draft-niks and mock-drafters out here: Why spend so much time predicting who the Bills will draft when free agency starts 6 weeks before the draft? For example, after signing Marcus Stroud and Johnson last March, the Bills certainly did not need to address DT on day one, did they? I know that the inner-circle jerks would be wise to sign two or three excellent FA'a beginning at 12:01 AM March 1st, and if they do, that will pretty much scrap just about all of our mock drafts.

Last I checked, Niagara County is still in New York State. Who is going to pay for this Super Bowl worthy state of the art domed stadium? Apparently this guy's plan is to get the thing built while Ralph is alive, and to get him to agree to play up to 4 home games a season in Toronto as the new stadium is being built. Then, if Wilson is still alive, he is expected to simply move the team to Niagara Falls and allow their name to be changed. Why would Ralph Wilson even consider doing this, when he has told everyone the Bills will remain in Orchard Park and be called Buffalo until he dies? So now this becomes even stranger. Who would pay for a domed stadium with no guarantee a new owner would even decide to keep the team here?

FAR better shape? 2005 was a losing season. Let me see, so were '06, '07 & '08. In today's NFL, isn't it almost impossible to have four consecutive losing seasons with free agency and the cap? But since the Bills are, as you say, in FAR better shape then four years ago, we can expect what, maybe 8-8-0 in 2009?? Only a sensational off season of free agent signings and drafting will give the Bills any chance of rising above their current state of losing with DJ at the helm.

Whisenhunt didn't lose the game for the Cards by deferring the ball to the second half. Mike Gandy's 3 drive killing holding penalties leading the way to the Cards' 100+ penalty yards lost the game for them. Those unbelievable 3 personal fouls on defense in one drive lost the game. Players' mistakes and penalties certainly made choosing to take the ball in the second half about the least important "mistake" the Cards' coaches made during that game! How about that horrible pass by Warner into the arms of Harrison from the Steelers' one yard line?? What the heck did kicking off to start the game have to do with that play?? A simple freakin' hand off to James, and a decent surge by the O-Line would have given the Cards the lead going into half time........despite the fact they elected to kick off first!

Of course Little Doug didn't have Fran Tarkenton's production. He played in the CFL for 7 seasons, right smack in the middle years of his playing career. Who does that? Warren Moon came to the NFL after his CFL career. Moon moved up to the NFL. Just like Jeff Garcia, and a handful of other quarterbacks, who used the CFL as a stepping stone up to the NFL. Flutie quit the NFL out of egotistical frustration, and stepped down the ladder of success to be a star in a lesser league, in the prime of his athletic career. Forget Doug Flutie already. His three seasons in Buffalo proved he could have been a fine starter in the NFL if he had the patience and perseverance to keep trying until a team finally allowed him to use his skills to his and their advantage. Flutie used his height as his crutch to blame the Bears, Rams and Pats for always choosing the "taller" guy over him. Tarkenton would have none of that crap. He simply outplayed every other taller QB the Giants or Vikings brought into camp.

What are you comparing here?? Little Doug brought his Heisman Trophy and Boston College story-book career to the NFL, in 1985. In the absolute prime of his career, 5 years into it, he quit on the NFL to be a superstar up in Canada. He remained a "3-down" superstar QB in Canada for the next 7 years. In 1998, by the time he came back down to help out the Bills, he was already in his late 30's and just had that one Pro Bowl year left in him - that '98 season he came off the bench when Johnson got hurt. He struggled mightily as the starter the entire '99 season, and like every other time he gained a starting position in the NFL before he bolted to Canada, he lost his starting job for the playoff game against the Titans to Johnson. He finished his strange NFL career starting a season for the Chargers before Drew Brees came in and put him back on the bench a couple years later. In all, the guy played pro football for almost 20 years, but his best years were the 7 he was a star in the CFL. His 11 or 12 NFL seasons were spent mostly as an un-appreciated back up, and sometime starter. Big Ben came out of little Miami University in Ohio, with no Heisman trophy, and with a chip on his big shoulder for being the third QB picked in his 2004 draft class. He came right in for the Steelers and started during his rookie season, and has won two Super Bowls as their starting QB in his 5 seasons. I really don't see him bolting for the Argos in a couple of months, do you?? Plus, although he has a knack for setting up different pockets to throw out of by eluding pass rushers, Big Ben is over 6'5 and Little Doug was what, 5'7 or 5'8?? Fluties' record as a starter in NFL playoff games was what, 0-1 or maybe 0-2 if he started a playoff game for the Bears early in his career? Big Ben already has two SB rings, so why you are comparing these two QB's is beyond logical reason, to me!

I don't hate Ralph. He deserves to be in the HOF. But he still should have fired DJ, and he should have brought in a better GM to help him make the right decisions. Both Polian and Butler left under strained conditions, and Donahoe was a joke. Marv Levy was a huge mistake, and now Wilson has settled on his inner-circle-jerks to run the team with him as president. Fine. As a life long Bills fan, I've stopped complaining and hope for a few things to happen: 1) DJ proves he can coach a winning team. 2) Brandon proves he has some personnel talent. 3) Buddy Nix helps find some good players in the draft like he used to under Butler. 4) Whatever players line up to start the season in September, find some passion about winning over their "love" of Jauron. 5) The Bills make the playoffs in '09. If 1 through 4 doesn't add up to 5, then Wilson should finally blow it all up again, and bite the bullet at 91 years old and bring in some proven football personnel people to run his 51 year old franchise for him once again in '10.

Please let me know how with it you are when you reach 90. Ralph sounded old, but the man gave lucid, well thought-out answers and was very impressive. Unfortunately, through no fault of his age or mental capacities, which it is obvious he still retains all of his mental capacities, Ralph does indeed run his football team, and he has never been good at that job. This is his day to celebrate all the reasons the voters elected him into the Hall of Fame. Good for Ralph, great for our fair city, and congratulations to him and the Wilson family - there will again be a huge and loud Buffalo crowd in Canton this August for Ralph and Bruce! BUT.....you bring up a very valid point in that his Bills have not been good at all, since he fired John Butler, and brought in Tom Donahoe. And then worse then that, after he fired Donahoe, and reinstated himself as team President. Looking back at the history of the winning teams Ralph has presided over, each team had one common thread, a talented and strong willed coach / and or / GM worked for Wilson those winning years. Go all the way back to Lou Saban...twice. Then Chuck Knox. And then the un-equaled Bill Polian, who brought in Butler and Levy....and A.J. Smith and those great scouts. Donahoe was given even more power then Polian, and Ralph had no reason to think, given Donahoe's reputation at the time, he was making a mistake. The guy crapped out. Oh well, it was time for Wilson to bring in another good man to turn the team around once again......and he decided not to even try! I don't know why. Maybe at his age, he was tired of always fighting with the good strong willed guys who although won on the field, gave Ralph and his ego more problems then they were worth at the end of the day. Ralph is still a very smart man. He knows why the team is not winning. His team always lost when he didn't have qualified football people running the football operations, and this era is no different from those. It is just our luck, that now Ralph seems content to try and get it done with this "inner-circle" of jerks, instead of once again reaching out for good qualified football men to bring greatness back to the Buffalo Bills. I was encouraged to see Buddy Nix come back into the scouting department. Maybe with the added pressure, DJ will stop whining about how hard it is to win in the NFL, and get some passion about just plain winning. Who knows? But I will be happy to see Ralph Wilson go into the Hall of Fame, regardless. Very good, very bad or perpetually 7-9-0, he has kept the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo for going on 50 consecutive years and counting!!

And the list grows by two today. Marv Levy, Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas & now Bruce Smith and Ralph Wilson....all NFL Hall of Famers. (James Lofton can take a bow, but most of his resume' was already filled out before you played for the Bills). I think we would all be remiss if we fail to acknowlege the amazing talents of Bill Polian & John Butler, who brought all of these coaches and players together during the same era, basically guaranteeing them their Hall of Fame enterence. They were all great on their own, and certainly Ralph Wilson made those old AFL contributions years before Polian and Butler arrived on the scene. But if not for Polian and Butlers' drive and ambition to make the Bills champions leading to four straight Super Bowl appearances, I'm not sure all of those five men would have been elected to represent the Buffalo Bills today!!

Good draft Tsaikotic - I would draft my center in round 2, but overall I like your thinking - and I also would love to see Drew Willy end up in Buffalo.

Wow. If the "Inner Circle-Jerks" think Jabari is a keeper, they damn well better sign him now, because any good football player that thinks the current Buffalo Bills are spectacular and that Buffalo is a fun place to play, needs to be kept in Buffalo and also needs to pass around whatever good drugs they are currently taking!! That kind of positive attitude is what begins building winners!! That said, I am now sure that the Jerks will let him leave.

But Mack would be way to much of a reach to draft number 11, so he will sit there and end up going to one of the top 5 to 8 teams in the NFL, while the rest of the "smart" teams drafting above them, you know the teams that suck like the Bills?, will take all of those higher ranked corner backs and wide receivers so those teams can continue to suck. Mack will then anchor his teams' center position for the next 10 years, just thankful to be drafted number 26 in the first round, or whatever.

The Dolphins are the anomaly. What were the Falcons, Ravens, Cardinals, Vikings & Panthers? Oh wait I know, they were all teams that missed the playoffs in '07 only to improve and make the playoffs in '08. That makes a total of 6 anomalies this past season, not one. The Jets, not quite a playoff anomaly in '08, still improved their record by 5 games over '07. I know Mangini lost the team at 8-3-0, going 1-4-0 down the stretch and getting fired for it. But you think they can't improve by one or two games in '09 and make the playoffs next season??? Sure I used the best example available from one season to the next. But the Dolphins were certainly not the only example of how teams can change fortunes from bad to great in 9 months.

That's all well and good for Warner to defend his and Boldin's immature disrespectful behavior towards their OC on the sidelines, since they won the game. But they would have taken a ton of heat if they didn't come back with that last TD drive to pull out the game after being outscored 19-0 in the second half. As the Eagles took the lead in the 4th quarter, Warner and Boldin were throwing Haley under the bus on national TV before the game had even ended. You think that's "winner" behavior? As if preparing for the Steelers' defense over the next two weeks won't keep Haley, Warner and Boldin busy enough, now they have a pain in the ass distraction they will be asked about relentlessly right up to game time. I would have expected more from a veteran like Warner, and Boldin was just barely healthy enough to play at all, much less to waste his time picking fights with his own coach on the sidelines. As much as I wish Kurt Warner was a Buffalo Bill while Kelsay was a Cardinal for talents' sake, I do not agree that Warner and Boldin should be commended for their attitudes. Chris Kelsay doesn't need to be yelled at by his coaches, he needs to be replaced with a better DE. But I don't fault him for defending his coaches instead of yelling at them on the sidelines!

Weeks ago somebody out here brought Reheem Morris's name up as a good young choice for the Bills when DJ was fired. I had never heard of the guy, but he was compared to Tomlin of the Steelers. It seems our TBD member was well informed, since the Bucs replaced Gruden with this guy, and I'm sure they are hoping he's the next Mike Tomlin as Tomlin leads the Steelers into their 7th SB in two weeks.

Sure they do. Like the Dolphins took all of 9 months to turn their personnel from worst in the NFL to first in the AFC East? Now I know Bill Parcells isn't running the Jets, but come on, teams turn things around from one year to the next every single season. Except for the ever consistent 7-9-0 Buffalo Bills of course. But every other team in the NFL has the ability to take advantage of free agency and the draft and make the playoffs after horrible seasons the year before.

Could they be clamoring because he coached a Super Bowl win for the Bucs? You know, a Super Bowl WIN? The one thing Dungy could not get his players to do?

The second SB winning coach was fired in Jon Gruden at Tampa Bay. This amps up the pressure on Wilson & The Jerks even more. Not so much that Gruden could have been available and all of that, but more so that Wilson has settled on DJ while these other franchises are firing coaches who have won SB Championships - starting with Billick last year in Baltimore, and now Gruden in Tampa as the latest to go. Now that the shock has begun to wear off and most of us die hard Bills fans are looking forward to free agency and the draft, I cannot imagine the pressure that will be on Ralph and his inner circle-jerks to make all the right moves by the end of the draft, and then again in June as the second wave of free agency hits. By training camp this July, DJ had better have much better tools to work with, or even Wilson will be forced to fire him mid-way through next season, input the obligatory temporary head coach for the rest of '09, and then try to hire a real head coach after the season. Good luck with all of that, Ralph.

Of course they have a choice. They can choose to trade down, draft one of the centers late in round 1 and gain an extra second or third round pick. They can choose to draft the best left tackle who is ranked around their number 11 pick, to have more leverage with Peters and his contract situation. Or maybe they address outside linebacker at number 11, since Crowell may not be back. Finally, the draft comes after free agency March 1st, so until we see what the inner circle-jerk does or does not do then, it really is hard to pin-point where the Bills will go with their first pick.

I don't think about reading realfootball365 anymore. Anthony is a long winded sports writer wannabe who thinks he is submitting articles for "The Pulitzer Sports Prize" with every epic opinion. He is forever trying to come up with "far-thinking" original ideas like this one, each being stupider then the next.