ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

Wouldn't it be ironic if Ralph was being cheap, and "pocketing" all that money every year, so that there would be enough accumulated free cash available to pay the required estate taxes without selling the team after Ralph dies? I have no reason to believe that Ralph's "savings" are being earmarked for that purpose, but it sure would make a lot of us look silly if Ralph's cheapness created an "estate tax fund" that ultimately saved the team for the city of Buffalo. It would only make sense if Ralph's heirs collectively wanted to find a way to overcome the estate tax obstacle and continue to own the team. Seems unlikely, but with TV contracts laying ever larger golden eggs, is it possible?

Only skimmed this so far - - not sure if the loan program is of any use to us because if Ralph again successfully demands that the county/state pay for all stadium renovations, he has no reason to apply for a loan from the NFL to pay for Ralph's share of the stadium renovation costs (because the team would have no stadium renovation costs). http://www.10news.com/news/30005718/detail.html http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/135632458.html http://media.signonsandiego.com/news/documents/2011/12/14/NFL_on_its_new_stadium_loan_program.pdf Note that the revived loan program contains some sort of restrictions on its use relating to team "relocation" or change of "home territory."

Over the years Ralph has promoted his niece Mary Owen from marketing intern to Executive VP. She has been heavily involved in efforts to "regionalize" the Bills brand into Southern Ontario, including, IIRC, some work related to the Bills-In-Toronto Series: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/02/28/People-and-Pop-Culture.aspx Ralph ain't gonna be around forever, and he knows which way the wind blows at NFL owners' meetings. He has publicly said (some years ago) that the team is gonna be sold when he's gone. Ask yourself, out of everyone in the Bills organization, who is Ralph most likely to throw a life jacket to when the ship goes down? Then find a way to make yourself valuable to Mary Owen, whatever she may be working on these days. Don't be a brown-noser or suck-up, but try to bring something to the table. If Ralph has her working in areas that will make her most employable by a future team owner (as seems likely), it wouldn't hurt to be considered a valuable contributor on the same projects - - no matter who eventually buys the team and whether or not it moves. You can sleep when you're dead. Good luck!

Does our kicker just flat out miss an extra point, or does Tebow block it?

If history is your guide, that would be JP.

Everybody just "knows" that "Wilson carries no debt at all" - - it's clearly the conventional wisdom. After all, he bought the franchise for less than what many new cars cost these days. Only problem is, there is reason to believe the conventional wisdom is wrong. I don't know where Forbes magazine gets its data, but it is a pretty well respected source of business information. According to a Forbes article published this year, the Bills have an estimated 2011 franchise value of $792 million, and a debt to value ratio of 16%: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/30/nfl-valuations-11_Buffalo-Bills_301765.html Footnote 3 of the article explains that the debt figure used to calculate the debt to value ratio includes stadium debt. But the Bills have no stadium debt. So according to Forbes, the team has debt in 2011 of $792 million X 0.16 = $126,720,000. That's slightly more than their $121 million in estimated 2011 player expenses including benefits and bonuses (according to Forbes).

JP had to transfer from UCLA to Tulane because he got caught gambling on games. When the Bills drafted him, they thought he had kicked his gambling habit, but he had just gotten better at hiding it. His head was never his best attribute, so he kept making losing bets, and getting in deeper to his bookie. When he couldn't pay up, the Mob directed the NFLPA to break his leg, figuring that as long as his arm was healthy he'd eventually be able to pay them back. So Troy Vincent "accidentally" broke JP's leg. When the Mob realized that JP wasn't going to get a lucrative contract extension, they kidnapped his Mom, and only released her after JP fumbled away that Jets game that was in the bag. Even JP wasn't dumb enough to lose that one on his own.

Looks to me like the existing stadium lease gives the Bills the exclusive right to use the stadium for potential money-making events like concerts - - the County/State are limited to a maximum of 4 "Civic Events" at the stadium per year, and the Field House is off-limits even for those four events. Some relevant portions of the existing stadium lease: http://www.erie.gov/billslease/stadium.phtml

Most people here don't know it, but TSW is actually a "decoy website" (like Outkube.com) that is designed solely to allow intelligent discussion elsewhere on the Internet: http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-decoy-website-launched-to-lure-away-all-moroni,26393/

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/rogers-bce-on-verge-of-deal-for-mlse/article2265448/?service=mobile

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d8085ee3e/article/even-in-the-offseason-nfl-education-never-ends

While looking for something else, I stumbled across an interesting 1994 quote (pre-Donahoe) by Ralph himself about some of his gm selections: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/28/sports/super-bowl-xxviii-papa-wilson-34-years-and-still-counting.html?ref=ralphwilsonjr

Here's some good news. It looks like Tanenbaum may remain locked in as a minority owner of MLSE rather than being bought out by another bidder or exercising his right of first refusal to buy the company himself (at least for now): http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/mapleleafs/article/1092448--teachers-takes-for-sale-sign-off-leafs

Maybe Chan can give the Khan death speech at the rematch with the Patriots in the last game of the season - - we could use a little fire in the belly even if the playoffs are a lost cause this year: "From Hell's heart I stab at thee. For Hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."

US pivate equity firm Providence Equity Partners is now reportedly interested in buying MLSE: http://www.thestar.com/mobile/NEWS/article/1087627 The comment about the NHL and NBA being unable to do anything to stop a public stock listing makes no sense to me - - if the NFL Constitution & Bylaws can prohibit publicly traded companies from owning an NFL team, why can't the current owners of NBA and NHL teams vote to amend their governing documents (if necessary) to include such a prohibition? Other articles about Providence and its interest in MLSE: http://www.benefitscanada.com/news/u-s-investor-interested-in-teachers%E2%80%99-mlse-stake-22840 http://www.cbc.ca/m/rich/sports/nba/story/2011/11/16/sp-mlse-mapleleafs-teacherspension.html And more pessimistic about Teachers' getting its desired price (which supposedly includes an "ego premium") from any corporate bidder: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/mlse-unlikely-to-end-up-in-hands-of-us-equity-fund/article2238025/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Hockey&utm_content=2238025 Let's hope Tanenbaum ultimately buys MLSE, so that he doesn't get bought out by some other bidder and convert his existing equity stake in MLSE to cash.

Florida loves Fish Brazilians love Dolphins too Coincidence NOT http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/138582-fish-week-facts-horses-donkeys-mules-goats/

The Miami Dolphins have always been popular in Brazil. My Portuguese needs a little work, but here's proof: http://undefeatteam.blogspot.com/ I could never figure out why. I've met a lot of Dolphins fans, and never thought much of most of them. But as far as I could tell, they didn't really have much in common with Brazilians. Turns out I was wrong - - I just didn't know enough about the habits of Brazilians: real-Los-Angeles-Times-story Now I understand, I think, but CHICKENS? And if you think this is just a coincidence, ask yourself why the authors of a medical study described in the link below specifically sought out men from Florida and Brazil for research: http://www.circinfo.org/cervical.html Chickens?

Dead! folz is right. Psychotic... but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part! Let's re-sign TO!

There is reason to believe that Buffalo Bills, Inc. (a NY corporation that Ralph owns, which in turn owns the team) had about $128 million in debt in 2009: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/130751-conventional-wisdom-bills-have-no-debt-service/page__p__2173076__hl__%2Bconventional+%2Bwisdom__fromsearch__1#entry2173076 Admittedly a new owner might have to incur an even higher amount of debt to buy the team, but Ralph is making a profit each year despite having acquired that $128 million in debt somewhere along the way.

There are several proposed theoretical explanations for the observed phenomenon of 83% rooster turnover: 1. The earth's inner core is tens of kilometers off-center; http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27321/ 2. The future has resumed its efforts to sabotage experiments being conducted at the Large Hadron Super Collider (you can't make this stuff up); http://io9.com/5380647/is-the-large-hadron-collider-being-sabotaged-from-the-future 3. Chicken Little (a well-known expert on rooster demographics) was right! 4. Ralph is cheep. 5. It's hard to keep your rooster upright in the NFL.

This article is from 2007, but I thought it gave some interesting details about what NFL officiating crews do: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2007-10-09-officials_N.htm

I had a dream where Roger Goodell said that the Ralph was old and dilapidated and could not support modern technology like HD video, so the Bills would have to move unless the County and state shelled out millions of dollars for stadium improvements. But then I went to the Jets game, and just before kickoff Fireman Ed got electrocuted doing something in a bathroom, which knocked out all the power. The scoreboard went dark, the headset radios wouldn't work, Maybin's personal barber had to use scissors and a straight razor to shave the word "bust" into his hairdo, the TV cameras wouldn't work, and there were only buggies in the parking lot. Then Fred Jackson went all old-school mid-evil on the Jets a$$, and the Bills won big. After the game, everybody went to the Amish Rifle's house to party like it was 1699, but everybody sounded like chipmunks. It looked and sounded something like this: THEN it got weird.

I think Fitz should wear the over-sized "Kelso helmet," as a way to spread fear, intimidate defenses and remind them of what is about to happen to them.

I wasn't in the room and I assume you were, so I appreciate that you took the time to review your notes to provide an exact quote about what Goodell said before the Eagles game. Because we're talking about things that happened more than 3 weeks ago, and that you presumably observed in person while I merely read about them, I went back and re-read a couple reports of what happened that day. I read this report first: http://niagara-gazette.com/sports/x1038034921/Commish-inspires-Buffalo-fans-to-keep-Bill-lievin I realize that in order to make a story more readable, reporters don't merely quote questions and answers verbatim, and write articles that provide the info in a way that may be different from the exact chronological order of questions and answers they heard. But the above quote from the NG seems to imply that Goodell's statement about his inability to offer "assurance" was made in response to reporter questions seeking details about (1) why Goodell was confident that the Bills would stay in WNY, rather than (2) exactly what Goodell himself has the power to do. Goodell certainly implied that he would personally play a major role in whether the Bills would move post-Ralph, because Goodell told the boy "I promise you - - I'll do everything I can to make sure it doesn't happen." The closest thing I could find to an actual transcript of everyone's questions and Goodell's answers was a blog entry by Chris Brown. I don't consider Brown a journalist because he's paid by the team he writes about, but I have no reason to think he misconstrued anything here (where although he uses no quotation marks, he seems to state Goodell's words exactly, thereby justifying Brown's description of the piece as a "transcript"): http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-2/NFL-Commissioner-Roger-Goodell-transcript/090e01f4-821f-4a74-aef3-cc74caebe73d Once again, this report seems to indicate that Goodell's comments about Goodell's inability to provide "assurance" were made with respect to Goodell's "confidence" that the team will stay put. That's not the same thing as asking Goodell to be specific about what Goodell actually has the power to do after he told the boy - - "I promise you - - I'll do everything I can to make sure it doesn't happen." Do you recall if anyone ever asked Goodell to specifically explain what the commissioner has the power to do himself to prevent a move? I don't recall seeing that mentioned in any of the articles I've read. But since you were there and I wasn't, I'm asking. Because Goodell made that comment to the boy during the fan Q & A, and the press presumably only got to ask their own questions later, I can understand how Goodell might not have been asked to be more specific about what Goodell actually has the power to do to prevent a team move.

Computer-Security-Paranoia-Is-A-Good-Thing