Hplarrm

There was never a lockout in the 80s. The players chose to strike in '82 and '87. Not a small difference. Its long enough ago that my recollection of these halcyon days is clouded at best. My remembrance of this time was that the players were threatening to strike after the regular season was concluded which meant that they would have collected the lionshare of their money but the owners would not have collected the lionshare of their money which was tied to the heavily viewed playoffs. My memory (again faded) was that the owners launched a job action which allowed them to hire "replacement players". The NFLPA whose members were not getting paid at all took about three weeks to fold. It was in light of this historic demolition of the Ed Garvey led NFLPA which was demanding 52% of receipts as their opening bid that what I call the talented tenth (maybe it was a 5% or maybe 20% of NFL players got their fellow players to try the decert strategy which amazingly quickly got the owners to beg the NFLPA to comeback and agree to a CBA which provided as much as 70%+ of the designated gross. Thats my general recollection of what happened though who locked out whom or what or struck strikes me as semantics. Partners in essence is a far cry from the legal use of the word. The fact the players aren't partners in the legal sense makes it easy for the owners to go on without them if they should ever choose to do. I agree which is why I used the in essence caveat. However, even though the legal language will be debated in court, I still think that in the real world this why the comparisons to what the owners of the steel plant around the corner allows its workers to see and what the NFL shares with its defacto partners the NFLPA are two different things. Under America's market system, no power be it government or the wealthy are allowed to abridge the rights of the individual to generally live in a free market system. The NFL and NFLPAs are in essence partner because in order to have a profitable and working pro football system the NFL uses a draft. The courts have protected the ability of individuals to live where they want and cut the best financial deal the can by saying that the NFL can only abridge individual rights by colluding together and having a draft IF the rules of the draft and of the game as a whole are negotiated between a certified bargaining agent of the players. This is why the decert threat is so powerful. If the NFLPA decerts itself then the courts have generally said that a draft represents an unfair infringment on the the rights of the individual. The NFLPA is not a traditional trade union (there is no draft and then assignment of auto or steel workers and it is silly to claim that because steelworkers have no right to demand to see Republic Steel's books then NFLPA members have no right. NFLPA members demand to see the books because the NFL has time and again shown that rather than protecting the rights of workers they strategize and make deals to undercut them. If the NFL wants to force individuals to negotiate with one and only one team and if the NFL wants to assign a place to live to athletes then it better work like a partner with the certified rep of the players. If the NFL does not want to be honest like one would be with a partner that is fine also but Brady et al. insist on having s true free market. Which networks? The networks currently contracted to pay the league? The networks that command the big advertising dollars and will have paid the league over $20 billion through 2011 and 2013 (ESPN)? ABC is the ONLY major candidate out there and they are poised to once again make the NFL a loss leader for them when the next bids go out to the networks. Its unclear, but part of the NFLPA leverage is the lack of clarity which comes with any new major attempt. My guess is that if the NFLPA were to attempt to start NewFL and did this by building teams around Brady et al that you would see the networks deal with the NFL contracts in a manner appropriate to the networks making profits. Specifically, my GUESS is that the failure of the NFL to provide a product due to the current lockout would be utilized by the networks to get away from the old contracts as quickly as they could. Even if the NFL used the lock-out insurance or old language to try to enforce the old deals, the house of cards of the NFL based on the significant indebtedness of many teams due to stadiums being built or basic operations is going to force the NFL to fold quickly as they did in the last two CBA negotiations. 2 What municipalities would be good candidates to provide viable facilities and the political will needed to float these bonds, etc.? Enough to form a NewFL around or simply make the threat which causes the current NFL teams to fold like they did in the last two CBA negotiations. 3. Like I said earlier this has been tried twice in my lifetime by people far better equipped financially and politically than the current players. Pegula, Golisano, and Jacobs are great names but do you honestly think they'd be willing to gamble hundreds of millions on start-up costs to get a fledgling league off the ground and be able to sustain it until it becomes viable while competing against the very league that saw very successful businessmen lose their shirts in the WFL and USFL? As I said, you do not need this to work, you merely need to offer the threat. My guess is that Pegula, Golisano, Jacobs or whomever are more credible options than the Donald Trumps of the world and that actually one could find a half dozen Donald Trump wannabees to talk a good game in addition to these three other more credible alternatives. 4.. As big a disparity as there is between the wealth of the current owners and players, the disparity between the top stars and the rank and file players in the NFL is just as stark. There aren't enough of them to support the start-up costs required on a venture of this magnitude. What lending institutions are going to underwrite these hundreds of millions of dollars? Brady and Manning earning money in the NFL is one thing. Them risking it all on a speculative venture is quite another. Its the golden rule. He who has the gold rules. The disparity between the wealth of Brady et al and the standard player is actually a good argument for why this could happen rather than why it won't. 5. The Packers very much have an owner in the stockholders that invest in them and in the board that hires and fires coaches and GMs. While public ownership is interesting I'm not sure this new league of yours would attract the number of investors required given the problems with getting this new league to a point of viability let alone in a position to provide dividends to investors. Again, I offer this not as a model for how things must be but as a model that there is a working alternative to the current owner cult of personality. Overall, the reason why the owners folded like a badly built home in a tornado in the last CBA renegotiation is that ultimately the owners do not want a free market system and they need their PARTNERS in the NFLPA if they are going to have the current system which undercuts individual rights. If the NFLPA hangs tough and puts out free market alternatives they can beat the crap out of the current owners.

The fact he is the owner gives him the ability to do whatever he wants but not the RIGHT. The entire free market system is based on the idea that good salesmen are not inordinately hindered by the government in making the sale. However, 50% of all companies go out of business within their first 5 years of incorporation specifically because they do not have a RIGHT to do whatever they want. The market gives abilities if you earn them but gives no one a RIGHT to succeed. It amazes me how in the entitlement culture people believe they have a RIGHT to do whatever they want. If he decides to not care what the customer wants odds are that he will be out of business soon. The owners do not drive the economy, consumers drive the economy. This is where the old saying the customer is always right comes from. Those who forget this sooner or later end up without customers. I agree he does not owe you anything beyond him surviving or not based on him continuing to give the customer what they want. However, in our free market based society, we value the individual. Merely because of the accumulation of old capital (often unearned and merely passed from one generation to he next who did nothing beside being lucky to get it) the rights on individuals are not allowed to be trampled in our society. The NFL was forced by the decert in the 1980s by the courts protecting individuals to realize they needed the union to represent the players in order to ignore the rights of individuals through exercises like the draft. The draft is basically a decision by employers to divide up and allocate individuals and force them to negotiate with one and only one team if they want to play NFL football. The plaintiffs in the Brady et al lawsuit have proposed as a remedy for these individuals that the NFL be forced to play by free market rules and negotiate with individual players for the best deal the market allows. What the NFLPA is arguing that since the owners basically begged the NFLPA not to decertify after the mid 80s lockout so that it could restrain individual rights through mechanisms like the draft that this essentially made the players a partner with the NFL in colluding against the rights of college players. You as fan do have zero rights to the details. However, the NFLPA maintains that as a court approved partner in the collusion denying the ability of individuals to pursue the free market should as partners see the books. The NFL actually took a lower level of income than was offered to instead get lock-out insurance. The NFLPA is arguing that if the NFL is not willing to treat the players as a partner, that is fine and is their ability. However, they should not expect the NFLPA to collude in denying individuals their ability to participate in a free market unless they treat the NFLPA honestly an as a partner. This whole fight is about whether one supports the free market (in which case one must support the Brady et al. ca;; for free market negotiation, or one can support the currently negotiated CBA (at least until the owners exercised their contractual right to opt out) which offered up a not unreasonable middle ground (at least according to Paul Tagliaboo-boo and 30 of 32 o owners at the time) where yes the NFLPA agreed to join the NFL in restricting the rights of individuals to pursue the free market but in exchange the players certified rep got 60.5% of the total receipts, or one can support the NFL owners position which essentially orders the NFLPA to represent the players and to collude with the owners to restrain individuals from operating in a free market by allocating them in a draft to one and only one team (even worse, the NFL and NFLPA collude to bar adults 18-21 to sign contracts to play in the NFL. It amazes me that an allegedly conservative appeals court has overturned a court of fact ruling which recognized that the NFL is actively ignoring the rights of individuals to negotiate in a free market. However, his opinion is actually supported by the fact that the Bills have failed to even qualify for the playoffs for over a decade. Blame Polian, Butler, TD, Marv, Wade Phillips,Mularkey or whomever you want, but the simple fact is only one man has had his hands of the throttle this whole time. Even if you want to blame these others, they are only responsible for part of this record of failures and who hired all these idiots in the first place. You are both entitled to an opinion but his is based on measureable facts and yours is demonstrably wrong.

I actually have played with a few ideas at my usual nauseating length while I am half listening to conference calls waiting for my turn to talk. I have presented these as the players following a logical step after they grasped victory from the jaws of defeat after the owners kicked the butt of the old AFL-CIO style NFLPA in the mid 80s lockout. The traditional union approach in fact was beaten so badly by the NFL owners that the players were willing to consider and ultimately be convinced that the decert strategy was the way to go. In the face of this strategy, the NFL team owners ran kicking and screaming to demand that the union come back and agree to the CBA. The first go-round with this resulted in a salary cap which delivered far more dollars to the players than was ever imagined. It did this by in essence making the players partners with the NFL team owners. With the development of labor peace, the TV networks proved willing to part with billions of dollars in order to sell commercials for even more money to advertisers anxious to put their ads in front of the many eyeballs interested in the NFL. In the last CBA renegotiation, Gene Upshaw was able to simply demand that the cap would be determined by total gross revenues rather than a designate gross. Further, he stated that the player share of the cap needed to start with a 6. 60.5% ended up being the final calculation of players share and arguably as they command well over 50% of the gross take the players became not only partners but majority partners in this enterprise. The MFLPA has remade the NFL but it appears to me that they are actually going to faint of heart and not take a new approach which essentially dispenses with the current team owners as they add little of value to the final product which cannot be more economically efficently replaced. I have dubbed this new creation the NewFL. There are several potential sources of capital for a new effort: 1. The TV Networks- They are in fact the current major source of cash for the league. The NFL usually follows the cash and I only wish there was strong enough leadership to organize directing this cash more directly to the players and take the NFL owners who really are just a middleman adding little to the product which cannot be simply (conceptually that is though not easily in reality) be a more economically efficient source of capital. 2. Municipalities- These are tough times so generating capital for what many see as a luxury is likely tough politically to do. Nevertheless, municipalities provide a potential source of capital which actually is economically superior to the private market in a number of ways which is not just mere opinion but is measurable in terms of dollars and cents a. Municipalities get better rates for loans than the private sector. Municipalities not only can borrow at a cheaper rate thant private sector efforts, but there is also the ability to self generate capital by selling bonds at a tax-free rate. b. Municipalities do not need to turn a profit on their investments providing a 5-10% advantage (or more depending on how much money the private sector investment wants to and can make In general the model for capitalizing a project would be something like the authority which was envisioned for building a new football stadium for the Jets. 3. New owners- One of the side effects of the massive shift in funding government from the days not too long ago when tax rates were higher (despite the whining of forces like the Tea Party about government sucking money from the private sector, the marginal tax rate used to be 70% on high earners and now the real rate is below 20% on the relatively low taxes on the rich modern regime. It is likely that new owners would be just as stupid as the current team owners, but a change would be good. Even in a small market like Buffalo there are several options for "new" owners like Pegula, Golisano, the Jacobs family and even a conglomerate led by Jim Kelly who might be enticed to replace the current economic drag which scrapes money off of football while adding little which cannot be replaced. 4.. The players themselves- one of the huge changes embodied in the CBA change is the creation of a ton of wealthy players. Again it would take smart leadership and unfortunately Upshaw is dead, but the players who now are operating as Brady, et al could front downpayments and look to large capital sources such as banks to provide the cashflow capital needed for the NewFL. 5. Something I have not thought of. Even in this economy, cash is always an issue but is not the problem in this society. In addition, in terms of management structures rather than the cult of personality which brings us the Jerry Jones, the Dan Snyders and the Art Modells, it is clear from the GB Packer example that it is possible to manage a team which is successful both on and off the field without an owner. I do doubt that unfortunately this will not happen. Though the players had the leadership in the 80s and 90s under Gene Upshaw to remake the league, I do not see that level of determination among the players today. Actually, though I think that the current NFL owners have routinely demonstrated they can be beaten in a economic fight, the difficulty for the players is that they have grown so fat and happy living off the huge changes in the game the last 20 years, I do not think they have the discipline to fine tune an attack on the owners. The owners appear to be so full of themselves and stupid that the players run the risk of actually killing the current owners rather than weakening them. However, I am quite certain that if a talented tenth of the players had the balls to do it they could essentially replace the current owners. If this happened we would have football now.

Naw, I prefer the current deal where I do not have to lay out any cash but the seller (the Bills) invites commentary on their action by offering their product for sale. What could be better, I invest nothing but my eyeballs and we all get to say whatever we want. As far as the ownership question, it is my hope that the players are going to make a major move like they did when they first threatened decertification and will actually move to get replacement owners for the current NFL fools who run the teams. The team owners use to play an essential role as they were the only ones willing to risk capital and the teams needed a manager. However, thanks to the owners building the NFL investment is no longer a huge risk and there are ample more economically efficient sources of capital. Likewise, the Packers model has shown that there are other alternatives than traditional ownership models which can work. The current NFL owners did great work when they were essential to delivery of the product. However, today they have easily been rewarded for their initial investment and basically they are an economic drag on the game we all love.

As one who has been consistently critical of Mr. Ralph's moves, I would also join those who say that he does not deserve any hatred toward him. In fact, he does deserve our undying thanks for not cashing in and either taking "our" team elsewhere when there were almost certainly offers on the table from towns like St. Louis and Baltimore to pay an enormous bribe to an owner. However, it only seems rational that along with that praise also comes a recognition of the truth. Cut it anyway you want it but Dick Jauron, Marv Levy, TD or whomever you correctly want to blame for making moves that simply did not work out at best or if you want for making bad football moves, cannot be blamed for even a majority to the Bills 0 for a decade plus playoffless run, There is only one man who deserves the blame for all the disasters which have confronted the Bills and their fans since the 90s. That is Mr. Ralph. Ultimately who hired all of these stupid men (if one chooses to be non-forgiving for your own personal foibles or reasons). Ultimately who has had repeated toxic relationships with the men chosen to be in charge from Polian, to Butler, to TD, to Wade, to Mularkey, etc, Ultimately who had made any number of simply wrong or bad football moves which only the owner can make (like the handshake deal and demonstrably wrong football judgment that the Bills would reward Jimbo in his "next" FA deal) or it would have been gross negligence if he had not been directly involved so he deserves a fair share of the blame (such as the miscue of signing a guaranteed contract with Rob Johnson who in retrospect should have been seen as clearly injury prone and when he did get hurt and Flutie played as well as we thought he would we ended up dedicating a crazy cap hit to the QB spot). Ultimately who is the lone figure (outside of some professional bean counters) who has had his hands on the throttle for all of our records both good and for the last decade plus bad. Ultimately where does the buck stop? I think the clear and only answer to all these questions is Mr. Ralph. Does he merit hate? No, not at all in my view. The team we love would not even be here without his actions. Being a Mr. Ralph hater says a lot more about the quality of the person doing the hating than it does about the quality of Mr. Ralph IMHO. However, does Mr. Ralph merit love? The answer to me is clearly YES. However, the facts are the facts and the record is the record. For a fan to simply declare love for Mr. Ralph and the series of football miscues and toxic relationships which he has been at least half of which that have killed the Bills again and again is a sick thing. Like a heroin addict who keeps doing the same things over and over which hurt himself and hurt others, the best thing those who love Mr. Ralph and the great things he has been a part is to give him "tough love", We love many of the things he has been a part of and even done. However, we are doing him and us a disservice if we continue to enable his stupid football moves by not recognizing the fullness of his record good and bad. The end product will be determined by what he does in his will when he leaves us. If he arranges things as best he can for the team to remain in Buffalo then almost all of what should be talked about is love for him. If on the other hand he pursues idiocy like simply selling the team to the highest bidder (which he actually could not do without the affirmative consent of 70%+ of his fellow owners (and without the consent of "partners" such as the players who have done things like kill the ownership attempts of Rush Limbaugh) then Mr. Ralph would deserve the full unabashed hatred of all who care about the Bills (or football or sportsmanship for that matter). This is the message I would send to both Ralph haters and lovers.

Naw, if they did that it would likely cause a backlash because it would cause a backlash as no social good would come from banning seats. A smoking ban works because what it will do is demonize and depopularize smoking to yet another extent. The ultimate effect of this will be to reduce the number of kids who get addicted to cigarettes as their use becomes less and less of a social norm. The tough thing for the cigarette biz is that if you do not become addicted when you are a kid the statistical probability is that you will never smoke. I agree with you that these types of bans are an infringement on the ability or right in our society to do things which harm us. This results in some cruelties but I prefer the laissez faire way of operating. However, I know I am willing to tolerate some fairly draconian controls which even though they infringe upon the rights of adults to choose serve to also reduce the number of kids who smoke. An example of this is the downright confiscatory level of taxation on smokes. it is wrong to tax adults so heavily and even worse to pay on those who are addicted to make this tax a moneymaker. However, this tax raises the marginal cost of use so high it is even obvious to kids they cannot afford it. Kids smoking rates go down. Likewise, as smoking has become more demonized and uncool it further removes opportunities for kids to experience a society friendly too or just tolerant to smoking. I think few disagree with adults having the right to smoke if they choose. However, I also am in favor of doing things which marginalize smoking and make it less doable or popular for kids to smoke. If kids do not get addicted and get the chance to decide whether to smoke as adults they tend to smoke less. Even if it is inconvenient for you as an adult don't you see how actions which lower kids smoking are a good idea. I think it is not going to be very successful to be a little pregnant on the smoking issue where we make it easily doable for an adult but make it hard or impossible for a kid to try and then get addicted.

Again, no one also has explained how if the accepted wisdom is true that the NFL always goes for profit and where the money sits, then it has to be relevant that by far the lionshare of the profit and money comes from the TV networks and not the gate sales. Folks keep talking about the Bills having a small market as though the geographic market rules decision-making. This is simply not the case as the real market where the profit and raw dollars come from is the TV market. Yes, the geographic market makes a significant market difference if the base of the TV money is the same for all amd the market question is simply a comparison of whether you add a ton of money on from a large market like LA or a "mere" half ton on money from a smaller market like Buffalo. Actually, what the market case is for decision-making: 1. The small vs. large market differences are washed out a lot now that the salary cap is set based on total revenue of the league teams from any source rather than a designated gross which exempts items such as luxury seats from the cap. 2. It has now been clearly demonstrated that even though the past CBAs were based on a "trust" that the NFL teams would accurately calculate and report their total gross receipts to their partners, the players, (by threatening decertification after the mid-80s lockout the players and the team owners basically formed a partnership embodied in the CBA). However, by deciding to re-open the deal early as the owners had a right to do and then negotiating "lock-out" insurance where the NFL and the players get less money from the deal in exchange for payment to the teams by the networks even if there is no product due to a lockout, the NFL owners are treating the players as traditional employees rather than as partners. The NFLPA has clearly recognized and operated under a 21st century market analysis that judges that the true customers are reflected not in the gate receipts (certainly a necessary but smaller cash stream than what the TV networks deliver, but in the TV payments. Overall, I think Buffalo Bills fans have a clear choice. Root for the owners to "win" their fight with the NFLPA and the result means no football in the immediate term as if the Appeals court overturning of the lower court decision in favor of the NFLPA we are back to lockout mode. If the NFLPA wins then we have football as normal. In the longer term- if the team owners win then the Bills stay in Buffalo until Ralph dies and when he dies something else happens but the Bills may be gone. On the other hand, if the NFLPA wins the suit as they did in the lower court then the likelihood is that football continues as in the past and the Bills stay. it seems odd to me that anyone would be rooting for the owners to "win" because if they do we fans are definitely screwed in the short term and have little recourse if Ralph or circumstance screws us in the long term.

If the quote provided in this NFL link is the best that can be provided in terms of Ralph stating a plan to sell to the highest bidder then it seems pretty clear that Ralph is not on record declaring that the team will be sold to the highest bidder. Even beyond that if such an on the record quote does exist he can obviously change his mind about this up until the last minute or so. Trumping all of this is the fact that by rule and Ralph's agreement no NFL team can transfer ownership without the approval of 70% of his fellow owners. This is only logical as if Muammar Khadafi were the highest bidder, the other owners can block this from happening unless 70% of the fellow owners agree. Without regard to what dead Ralph says in his will, one cannot force his former fellow NFL owners to diminish the value of their property because dead Ralph says the team must be sold to the highest bidder. The contention that the Bills must be sold to the highest bidder is simply wrong.

Ralph the businessman has agreed with his partners that the team will not be sold to a new owner without the approval of 70%+ of the other owners. This makes sense in that if Mr. Ralph or his estate could simply sell to the highest bidder without the approval of the vast majority of his partners, the other NFL team owners then without regard to whether highest bidder was Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, or Osama Bin Laden's son then that person would become a partner in the NFL. Do you agree that any new owner in order to even qualify as a bidder would need the approval of a vast majority of the owners and other key stakeholders like the players. Rush Limbaugh did not believe this and he ain't an owner today because of this. The fact Sully and others overlook this basic point makes their views silly. Sully is correct that > The owners are interested in one thing: Profit. but he misses the fact and fails to calculate in his fantasy outcomes that the profit comes not from ticket sales and whether your market is small but from the TV networks and the REAL source of NFL profits! Ticket sales and market size are marginally important to the individual owner but this margin is very small compared to the real money and profits of the TV networks. Any theory which does not take this market reality into account is mere bloviating.

Another factor to consider in this is that one thing Sully said in his typical fact-free rant was: The owners are interested in one thing: Profit. It is clear right now where the major source of cash and profit is for the NFL: The TV networks. They provide orders of magnitude more cash and profits to the individual teams than gate sales and local profit streams. A key question is what benefits the TV networks the most and that is of course eyeballs so they can make their own profits selling commercials to companies. The answer is eyeball. If a team comes to LA (much less two) it likely will mean an end to the blackout rules for non-sellouts because there is no way the networks will want to blackout the whole LA area if a team fails to sellout. In fact, I do not know what the actual viewership #s are without a team in LA but the networks (again the true source of money and profits for the NFL team owners) may be quite fine not having the games blacked out in LA. The countervailing theory would be that with a team in LA there will be more CA viewers. Perhaps that will be the case. However, given the past failures of LA teams to produce at the gate given the myriad other nice weather choices and the parking lots known as roads one has to navigate, it could easily be that the networks make more money from there not being a team in LA (much less two). Overall, maybe I am just being Pollyanna about the Bills moving, but I think the bottom line for the NFL is money. If the Bills leave, the individual owner really gets little money from their cut of the franchise fees. In addition, to leave means walking away from 40,000 + season ticket holders, myriad commercial deals and all the assets in place in Buffalo. A lot of this can be replaced in the excitement of a new franchise, but it will take a lot of work and is not a certainty at all that there is more profit for the individual NFL owner by the Bills moving or not. The smart thing to do in terms of profit for the NFL is given a choice between profit in Buffalo and profit in Toronto, the obvious NFL answer is to take both. I see little reason why both profit centers cannot exist and actually like McDonalds and Burger King which found when they set up next to each other they both profit more. My guess is that the NFL goes with the cash and the cash says you want to get at the eyeballs in LA, the eyeballs in Toronto, the eteballs in Mexico City and even the eyeballs in Beijing if you can. This where the money is and the NFL tends to follow the money.

My recollection is that not only did all the tape on Trent not suck, but that a great talent evaluator and user Bill Walsh went out of his way to sing Edwards praises and that was a big part of why the Bills drafted him in the first place. Edwards showed some very good stuff as a rookie such that his pre-season performance not only in practice but on the field won him the #2 job behind JP. I think folks were impressed with his initial work and I do not remember any wail and cry when he won the back-up job. Add to this that when JP got Wilforked in the first game of the season while Edwards did not lead the team to a victory over one of the best teams in the league he clearly impressed most observers. I remember rather than being a stumble bum who made folks ask what the heck was Bill Walsh and the other "professionals" thinking that Edwards demonstrated on the field as a rookie against one of the best Ds in football: 1. A good head and football sense which was likely why he so impressed Walsh. 2. A quick arm and very good accuracy (I remember being frightened for his health when he hung in the pocket but got the ball out for some nice completions as a rookie. 3. Even better he proved suprisingly nimble and fleet of foot as a rookie. My recollection is that Edwards impressed outside observers alot with his early play but ultimately two things happened: 1. His luck ran out and he got nailed a couple of times with his gutsy late throws and got knocked out of the line-up with a wrist injury. 2. Not only did he lose PT to the wrist injury as a rookie but he got blasted and ended up with a concussion which cost him a couple of games after he led the team to a great undefeated start against weak competition (but still players with NFL size and speed) in his second year. It was a combination of him being gunshy after some huge pro hits, him proving to be injury prone as a pro after being good enough to impress Bill Walsh (who has forgotten more about football than you or I will ever know) evaluating his play- I define injury prone as missing PT to three separate injuries in 2 seasons- Edwards went down with a wrist, a concussion, and an unexplained injury which cost him valuable pre-season time his second year, AND the big thing in my mind the Bills offense was pretty clueless under Jauron who never showed the ability to hire a good UC even when he was NFL HC of the year behind a great D and good luck. The Bills took a player with pretty good skills and who may had some bad luck prior to his draft and then ruined this player in terms of development. The fact that you simply disregard a bunch of history in drawing your conclusion that the professional were out to lunch actually makes me question who is out to lunch here. Edwards had fatal flaws which made him not a good choice to be a franchise QB. However, in his brief stint til being injury prone caught up with him he was quite impressive so it is not a mystery to me that the professional evaluators got fooled.

The other thing I vaguely remember is that one of the folks in the use Marshawn more camp was none other than Fred Jackson. My understanding was that he and Lynch had a good relationship and both advocated that the Bills could do well by using them both in the backfield at the same time. Jackson/Lynch was certainly no RJ/DF battle where one was gonna play and one was gonna sit. I remember advocating until Jackson busted his paw (the actual answer to the question posed at the start of this thread as to why Lynch saw a lot of time early on rather than some birthereaque conspiracy theory that Gailey had already given up) that the Bills O might be most formidable with a three RB offense which used Spiller as well. If Spiller had shown any ability in the pros which he had hinted at times in college that he could actually run routes and play WR, a opposing DC upon seeing all three RBs in the game would have to make a choice whether to put 8 men in the ox against the run or instead do nickel or even dime coverage. Jackson showed great all-around skills and one of things which made Lynch a first round selection were the receiving skills he demonstrated in college. If Spiller also had his receiving and route running skills emphasized it is not outrageous to think of a Bills O which featured Jackson, and Lynch. and Spiller even lining up in an empty back set. If all the RBs were able to line up wide then Edwards merely would have to pick the one who was being covered by some plodding LB one one and throw to them. It was too bad Jackson got hurt as I think this reduced the Bills to not only playing Lynch a lot but running a pretty vanilla O with him, Gailey seemed to make the choice a full house backfield would not work. I would trust his judgment it did not work rather than look for some conspiracy to allegedly prove he never tried or thought about it.

Exactly. Even if you accept everything folks say about Obama as true, it still should give one pause to think about what shape we would be in if Sarah Palin was a mere heartbeat away from the Presidency and the ticker in question would have belonged to the oldest man ever to be elected President. Given that the alternative to the Democrats is the GOP I don't feel Oprah owes anyone an apology for exercising her right as an American to have an opinion about who is President. That being said, having an opinion that OJ is lying is a pretty sound opinion IMHO.

My favorite recent line was one delivered on Saturday night live after some folks started questioning whether it was in fact Osana bin Laden was actually killed by Navy Seals under orders from our Commander-in-Chief. The joke was that Obama was probably the only black man in America who had to prove beyond all doubts that he had killed someone.

Actually I think the efforts to bar the number of places where adults can smoke is part and parcel of a strategy to reduce the number of kids smoking. A lot of the marketing of smoking has been to make it appear to kids as something cool and something that is a sign that a person is an adult. Perhaps it has not been articulated as the strategy of anti-smoking groups (but trying to get kids to smoke has never been articulated as a strategy of the cigarette companies but clearly it is as the statistics show that if a person does not get addicted to cigs before they hit 18 they are far less likely to smoke- in fact the cigarette companies state up front that they oppose children smoking but defend the right of adults to smoke- yet the numbers clearly indicate that if the cig companies do not get people to get addicted as kids they are gonna lose a bunch of money and may go out of business). The anti-smoking folks have long had a strategy of attempting to marginalize smoking by adults as a means of stopping kids from getting addicted. This is the strategy which has been behind efforts to ban smoking in workplaces (it does not look cool to see smokers huddled in doorways in cold weather and to try to eliminate smoking in movies and TV. Adults end up being the direct target but the goal is all about stopping kids from getting addicted. I doubt they will go after grills because the goal of the anti-smoking forces is not to protect kids from all smoke but to marginalize cigarette smoking as a cool adult activity. The tailgating piece I suspect is being implemented as a crowd control effort as the thought is that many of the unruly fans who are blotto may be reduced by cutting back on an hour of tailgating. My guess is that tailgating is great from the Bills perspective because it makes for good storytelling. Its wonderful for their to be rabid fans who gather for the event and devote the whole day to it. However, losing an hour of tailgating will still allow the TV networks to depict the story of rabid fans and the only thing which will be lost in an hour of tailgating is additional blottoness of a few fans.

Again its the golden rule (he who has the gold rules). Both drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco are odious habits subject to abuse which in principle are choices that a free society should generally feel fine about adults choosing. However, there also is a pretty reasonable principle which I think even heavy smokers or heavy drinkers would agree with that we should not allow, encourage and actually its quite justifiable to actively discourage kids from smoking or drinking Do you or others not agree with this because if one doesn't then there is another conversation we might usefully have. One of the ironies in this is that actually as far as it goes, I think the smoking versus drinking comparison actually tends to justify more restrictions on children drinking than on children smoking (again both are easy calls for me that it is easily justifiable in principle to not encourage and actually to discourage kids from either smoking or drinking alcohol. However, as far as it goes it is easier for me to see justification in banning drinking than banning smoking (yes secondhand smoke can harm others so smokers should be pretty cognizant of their habit harming others) but the potential and measurable harms of drunken driving makes it easier for me to ban drinking than ban smoking. However, again there are fundamental differences between alcohol and tabaco use which makes comparison between the two silly. 1. It is possible to use alcohol in a manner that is not harmful and in fact even helpful based on medical studies. 2. However, when used as directed cigarette smoke can be harmful and in fact fatal. It is these two general facts which I think making taking action to discourage minors from smoking is easily justifiable. In fact, I would think that even a heavy smoker would accept the many additional costs and inconvenience which society places on smokers simply because these inconveniences or even transgressions against the rights of smokers is pretty justifiable in order to discourage kids from smoking. Bill I know from your posts your posts you are a pretty reasonable and thoughtful person. Do you think that the heavy taxes and things like the ban at the Ralph even though they are incorrect in principal to lay on adults also are at least somewhat justifiable as an effort to discourage minors from smoking? The other oddity which must be taken into consideration is that the experience of our society is that though outright bans on socially undesirable or harmful activities can be effective (for example a libertarian might argue that the market should determine whether we use lead in gasoline, however, I am all for our society choosing to bad lead as a gasoline additive because this ban resulted in a plummet in the rate of lead poisoning of kids and lead poisoning simply makes kids stupid. I am glad we did not leave this to the marketplace. However, as we learned in prohibition, an outright ban on liquor sales resulted in more binge drinking of contaminated bathtub gin and a huge boon for organized crime. Bans on alcohol simply do not work without regard to principle. Sure the censure and bans on cigarettes also have been a boon for organized crime but there is simply no comparison between the impacts of banning both substance. In the final estimation though the determining factor here in terms of action on either smoking or drinking remains the golden rule. There are simply too many economic downsides in terms of public facilities from airplanes replacing air filters of restaurants and hotels having to replace counter tops and chairs with cigarette burns for them to look for an opportunity not to pay a hidden subsidy for smoking. Likewise, the economics of selling tobacco simply do not compare to the economic gain to be had from liquor sales. Between the principle justification of fighting smoking by minors and also maintaining the economic benefits of alcohol sells the principle of letting adults do what they want simply falls by the wayside.

This to me is another indicator of a couple of points. 1. A big key to the general societal movement to restrict smoking in public facilities was when these gathering points began to realize how much expense they were hit with due to smoking. The airlines were one of the first because they were able to calculate how much they were spending on replacing or cleaning air filters clogged by cigarette smoke. It simply proved to be a great savings for them (and other public facilities not to have to pay bucks so some customers could "enjoy" this addiction. In addition to an air filter replacement charge, facility users also found great savings in not having to replace upholstery burned by cigarettes and other general costs. The health stuff is important but ultimately not the driver in making change happen (but one should consider if the tar is doing this to a filter then think about what it is doing to your lungs). 2. There is a pretty hard to deny benefit of all the flat out bans, taxes and other inconveniences which are hard to justify in principle in terms of adults making choices, but all of these barriers do making it a bad choice for a kid to take up smoking. Is there anyone out there who thinks that kids should be free or even encourage to smoke? I do not think so. In fact most people pretty actively feel that kids should be discouraged from smoking. Do you have a problem with that? The kicker in all of this is that the studies pretty clearly show that if people do not begin smoking until they are 18 that the number of smokers goes way down. Smoking is generally a choice people make when they are young, inexperienced and not as bright as they are going to be. I think heavy cigarette taxes are a great thing because when kids see they are going to have to pay 8 bucks pack in order to smoke they simply choose to spend their nickels on some other habit or vice. I would think adult smokers even though pissed by the inconveniences they are forced to bear because of their adult choice would actually be accepting of these inconveniences being real barriers to stop kids from smoking. The kicker is that once a kid becomes an adult without smoking they are far less likely to become a smoker because you generally have to be pretty juvenile to take up the habit.

This appears that it may be one of the unintended consequences of the series of events which began with the NFL owners triggering a renegotiation of the CBA which has led to the current lockout. The players in their now more intense search for extra income are doing all sorts of stuff they might not necessarily do, or even if they did, the NFL could more easily get the player to cease and desist. From my perspective, the NFL has long made a series of penny wise and pound foolish decisions which have reduced or simply not encouraged a sense of family or loyalty from the workers. In this case by pushing a renegotiation they have a contractual right to do, the situation has escalated to a point where weird things are happening or at least not as easily nipped in the bud because the worker feels less affinity for their team and the NFL. Overall, the NFL has the subsidy advantage of having their young players training and development paid for by the college system, but the disadvantage of not gaining the allegiance and alliance with young athletes who are recruited and signed as teens by other sports like baseball and hockey players. The NFL gets a cost benefit from not having to pay for relationships with minor league players, but these players view themselves as independent agents rather than as representing the NFL or their team. Thus they take money to associate themselves with dicey elements.

I think one would be foolish not to look back at the last time the results of the CEO/Player dynamic changed which was after the mid-80s lockout (note that I did not say the dynamic which is less mutably based on human nature but the results changed a lot as they are based upon the rules which human nature produces). The results produced by the human nature changed in a big way because the NFL owners scored a huge tactical victory over the traditional AFL-CIO NFLPA led by traditional AFL-CIO type Ed Garvey. From the owners perspective no good deed goes unpunished as they won so effectively with the replacement player gambit that it made the decert strategy ultimately pursued by the NFLPA a viable possibility. The sea change differences were: 1. The team owners ran kicking and screaming from actually working a free market to wanting the union to comeback and collude with them to force adults to be directed where to live and forced them to negotiate with only one entity. 2. A sea change occurred in that the pretense that the players were "merely" employees like workers at a normal business was obviously incorrect. The players in essence became partners with the owners in producing the NFL product. One could begin to see the impact of this change in the NFLPA began to stop reflexively supporting players against any disciplinary action and instead began the process of educating the untalented 90% of players that they needed to at least pretend to act like adults or they risked killing the whole thing. Players like Troy Vincent and TKO Spikes began taking Ivy League business courses during the off season and it became clear who the talented tenth of leaders were (folks like Brees are stepping up to be leaders and in the lawsuit after decert its Brady, et al. and high profile players like Manning who are the name plaintiffs) 3. The tsunami continued to grow with the last renegotiation of the CBA where Upshaw publicly dictated that the new CBA would be applied to the total gross receipts rather than designated portions but also that the player share needed to start with a 6. Not only did he state this but on paper he won with 60.5% being the agreed upon assessment of the NFLPA share. 4. This result was a sea change in that is that even if reality is below 60.5% the players now clearly get well above a majority of the total gross receipts and arguably they are not only a partner but the majority partner in this enterprise. You are right that the $ amount under dispute are really relatively small % (which still means large absolute dollar amounts in the multi-billion NFL where the TV networks are by far the true cash cow diminishing the import of gate receipts. Though human nature and thus the CEO/player dynamic remains the same (and really is an irrelevant item for comparison sake and as a driver of change) the thing which as changed is the market. Marginal differences between small markets and big markets still remain. However, the true market where the vast majority of the money comes from is from eyeballs all over America and if the NFL wants more money all over the world which really determines actions. This actually is great for Buffalo as its value is actually determined not by local market size but by its place as an original AFL team. In the future if/when we see a new stadium for Buffalo it likely will be smaller as the rabid fans make for good story telling to the true market rather than a couple of more marginal dollars from selling 15,000 tickets.

I agree with the post above that fans are loyal to their teams and that players come and go routinely and they root for the players who they know right now. However, I think the mistake that many make is confusing the owners with the teams. I think fans define their teams right here and right now by the players who are on them. If the players suddenly changed they would notice and be influenced by that. If the owner suddenly changed it would be noticed bu the game would proceed ahead easily. My sense is that right here and right now, the owners have provided the players with another opportunity to remake the game and continue to lessen the owners as a drag on the game. The best move for the top 200 to make right now as best as I can see is to use the work stoppage to get free agency and to establish the NewFL. If Fitzpatrick, Evans, Lindell, Poz, and a few others started the Buffalo Thrills who played their games at UB or some college stadium and funded it through cash from the TV networks as part of a package with the NE Cats QB'ed by Brady, ets.. the Indy Dolts QB'ed by Manning, et a;. etc I would be as curious and interested in the new product as the old. The hard part of the players would be to calibrate the new entity so as to mostly weaken and remove the old NFL as a drag but not to kill the stupid current NFL owners because they are a source of cash. Things would be much more economically efficient with a greatly diminished power for the Snyders of the world.

Actually the current owners of the NFL teams are pretty much the equivalent of JaMarcus Russell. He did great work earlier in his career, but really adds nothing to the game now which cannot be better provided by someone else at a significantly lower cost. The current NFL team owners also did very impressive things in the past. Folks like Mr. Ralph risked their money to buy teams like the Bills when other sources of capital would not. Folks like George Halas lived and understood the game and provided good management. However, like JaMarcus who despite a promising start provides little or nothing to the game today despite his lofty profits, there are also ample sources of capital due to the promising start the current team owners gave the NFL and as shown by the Packers it is possible to manage a team with far greater economic efficiency (volunteers doing the concessions because the volunteers see themselves as part of the municipal ownership of a team which is there to provide value to the municipality rather than for some individual. The thing you have all wrong is that you do not seem to know which owner is JaMarcus Russell in the analogy. In my fantasizing about the NewFL, the owners are Brady, et al (though by plan they will be replaced by whoever is the new flavor of the next few years when these players get old and move on. In the reality of the current NFL team owners are folks like Mr. Ralph who were gutsy in their day, but seem to hang on and on and on.

+1

I have nothing against owners per se, just I insist on when judging an owner one should recognize the good and the bad. Ralph deserves ton of credit for keeping the team here when there likely was more money for him to make as an individual elsewhere. However, as well as this well deserved credit an honest appraisal of him must acknowledge that he also deserves primary blame for the 0 for a decade + playoff less streak. As far as the relative role of the pro football owner versus the other major sports owners, the NFL is singular in that no other sport has seen its owners suck off the public teat like the NFL which has gotten colleges to bear virtually the entire cost of training and developing their talent. The cost borne by the owners of other major sports like MLB and the NHL (and to some extent by the NBA though tax and other dollars subsidize their player training and development costs they actually lose money on speculation even higher than other sports). I think the main story here which an amazingly significant number of posters seem to fail to see is that: 1. NFL owners were once essential to the sport because few sources of capital were willing to risk it all on football and also the old owners used to be football men. Today it seems clear due to the great work of the team owners that the NFL is the next thing to a printing press for producing $. Further it seems clear to me that the owners of NFL teams like Mr. Ealph or Jerry Jones do more harm than good and that the Packers represent a successful model both on and off the field of hired management without a central owner. 2. The NFL labor dispute sees them hoist on their own petard as by colluding with the NFLPA to ban even some adults from signing contracts they now face a union with adults in charge and the talented tenth of these juiced athletes are now embracing strategies such as the decert to send the owners run kicking and screaming to turn over partnership authority to their newly asserted partner the players. We have before us an interesting test of the American courts. Will they rule for the players which flat-out means that football will be restored this season as we know it, or will they rule for the owners which means we continue with no game and the two parties continue to dual with each other in a game of chicken but with the owners having a clear tactical advantage (thus heightening the chances that the players will simply turn over the whole game board by taking any opportunity to declare free agency for all since the owners are locking them out and try to get TV networks to fund an alternative league- but this thought goes way beyond the current reality), The test of our courts is whether they will stand-up for the traditional American value of the free market and individual rights and find for the players like Brady et al who are pushing for individual personal services contracts. Alternately the courts could find for the NFL, though ideologically this would mean finding for a social compact over a free market approach. Even more oddly, finding for the owners not only endorses the socialized economic system over the free market but does so in a manner that in essence forces the union to represent the individual players. A finding for the owners would in fact not only force unionization over the individual market, but it would also force college draftees who are not even members of or represented by the NFLPA to accept assignment to whatever team drafted them and live in an area chosen in that draft. Forcing Americans to live where they are assigned it sounds like Cuba to me. While there is no need to feel sorry for any NFL player as they are being well paid to live where they are assigned to live, it is a bit odd to hear that allegedly conservative judges like the one which reversed the lower court finding for the unions actually by their ruling: A. In effect short circuited the demand of Brady et al. to force a free market system on the NFL but instead the socialized compact system was allowed to continue over the free market. B. Forced the NFLPA union to speak for the players rather than decertify themselves. C. Allowed for the assignment of adults to negotiate with one and only one economic entity in the sport and said this was legit because the union which does not allow them to become members has been ordered to represent them but until they sign a contract with the team they were assigned to they cannot even vote for leaders on that union. Go figure.

I actually have a haiku version this post which I will put up when I get the syllabication worked out.

Right Mr. Raloh is no Mark Cuban in terms of shooting his mouth off (outside of time to time examples where he did things like declare that RJ should start for us after a Bills team led by him made mincemeat of an Indy team which had given up after Bennett got hurt and IRed and the scoreboard showed that even if the beat the Bills it would do no good. A moment where he bought an ad to whine about the fans not buying tickets after his team was producing a bad product was another unfortunate exercise of his constitutional right to be an idiot). However, I agree that Mr. Ralph has not shot his mouth off like Cuban he has consistently done worse as an owner uding his owners right to manipulate things on field or being a clear part of mismanaging relationships with the football professionals. Only a part of Mr. Ralph being worse than Mark Cuban ever was includes: 1. Making a handshake deal with Kelly to reward him in future seasons when even me as an outside idiot could see he was pretty much done. Mr. Ralph made a demonstrably bad football judgment and we are still paying the price to day after time and again we looked for the new Jimbo and made mistakes that were either Ralph driven or he should have known from reaching for TC, to the RJ contract, to Billy Joe Hobert, and so on. Even when others can be directly blamed, some of this only Ralph could do and the buck stops with him anyway if you want to blame TD, Marv, Jauron or someone he hired. 2. He repeatedly has had toxic relationships with his key people leading to their leaving the team and the Bills having to scramble for help (who then leave the team). Among the toxic relationships he deserves at least half the blame for are" Polian- Great GM who gets a lot of the credit for building the Bills winners and who won an SB after leaving- fired by Mr. Ralph Wade- Fired by Mr. Ralph who then tilted at a windmill not to pay him and he got rejected whenever told him he would be. Butler- Left the team high and dry (and may have even intentionally tanked the Flowers draft but his leaving was unseen and mismanged by Ralph TS- A perfect example of Ralph needing to scramble because he mismanaged the Butler situation but then he ended up having to fire the guy he hired. Levy- Another case where after he canned Polian and TD this was the best he could do and some blame him for a lot during his brief reign I agree that Mr. Ralph deserves a ton of credit for keeping the Bills here when there were allegedly greener pastures in LA or e;sewhere. However with this realistic great thanks need to come a recognition that Ralph was a worse owner than even that idiot Cuban in many ways. The Mavs win provided a welcome demonstration this year that Cuban had no public role with the team either running his mouth or running the team. I hope Ralph adopts that attitude. To the extent that the current denial of pro football to the fans is his doing he may be killing the Bills chances once again.