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This issue however is actually what is at the base of the current dispute between the NFL team owners and the NFLPA. When the team owners simply kicked the butt of the old NFLPA leadership which was attempting to run the NFLPA under the traditional AFL-CIO model under the leadership of Ed Garvey, it created an opportunity for what I call the talented tenth of NFL players led by Gene Upshaw to push through a new model of interaction. This model saw the NFLPA move to decertify itself as a bargaining agent for the players. This move would have forced the individual team owners to actually compete against each other in a free market where the bought individual players services. It was pretty clear very quickly to the owners that they as individual would actually make more money by expanding the social compact which has always made up the individual team owners than they would if they actually competed in a free market with each other. However, the manner that the modern NFL operates has a big cost to the old guard like Mr. Ralph. In order to settle the threat of a decert, the NFLPA required the Comprehensive Bargaining Agreement to give them a share of the profits and also checks and balances on controls of te NFL which essentially made the plauers partners with the owners. One could label the arrangement anyway you wanted, but the simple facts are tbat tbe salary cap guaranteed the players a massive cut of a substantial designated receipts from the gross. In particular the largest share of the primary source of capital from the real client and market TV. Change began to creep in with the players abandoning their old role of defending players without regard to what a player did to finally participating in the disciplining of players like Pac-Man Jones and Chris Henry who the NFLPA viewed as endangering the wealth of all. With the last CBA until this dispute, the NFLPA publicly dictated to the owners that the final deal would be for ALL gross receipts with no designation and that the player share would be the vast majority of the gross making thme not only arguably an partner but in fact the majority partner. The team owners ran kicking and screaming to sign the old CBA rather actually compete in a free market, Under dispute now is that the team owners refuse to open the books and share info with thieir new partners. The irony is here is that in the court dispute the NFL teams are having to argue against a free market where each players signs an indiviudal personal services contract. It is Brady et al. who are arguing for a free market It may be that money will simply rule the day and the rich men of the NFL will beat down the free market. I doubt it though as if the courts favor the NFL and the NFLPA continues to decert itself then the owners are not only unilaterally putting their last offer in place, but they are further ignoring indivudal player rights by doing things like restraining trade with the draft without any input from the decerted NFLPA. I doubt this argument wins out over a more free market approach.

The real issue going on here (and why I think it baffles many folks who by habit view this in terms of a typical AFL-CIO vs.Management dispute is that the fight is between a post-AFL-CIO type union (the NFLPA is a different type of union than the traditional model we are used to from the Sacco and Vanzetti type or child labor dispute). The NFLPA tried the traditional AFL-CIO style under Ed Garvey and got its head handed to it by the NFL team owners in the 80s replacement player dispute. This created an opening for what I call the "talented tenth" of players who led by Gene Upshaw and enlisting the help of a bunch of smart lawyers used the decert strategy to send the NFL owners running to sign the CBA which eventually by agreement gave them a minority share of the total receipts. The dispute going on is really over who is the majority partner in the NFL between the players and the team owners. My bet is on the players for several reasons: 1. The players position delivers football to the fans and the owners position does not. 2. I am happy to pay money or watch the players play. I have no natural desire to pay money or to watch the team owners own. 3. The players are actually for more of a free market where the players are independent contractors while the owners are for a system based on a social compact. I think in the end the more free market argument will win out in the American courts and in the public to the extent it focuses on the underlying issues.

The main person saying thank you if you cut Evans would be Lee Evans. If he was FA this would unleash such a bidding war for the player who is #3 behind Reed and DuBenion and he would get to pick the team with a credible team with a starting #1 WR and a big armed QB it would not even be funny. If you are such a devotee to stat what would you pay for a WR with the stats of Evans career for TDs catches and yards for nothing, you would be that you would throw him under the bus for one season that did not meet your standards. Oh please.

Anyone notice the prof who wrote this is named Barak? Stranger meaningless coincidences have happened such as the Pre having the middle name and idiots make a big deal about it. However, I tend to believe less and less of anything appearing on the web and would love objective confirmation of all of this.

Many thanks for thoughtful (though often incorrect) responses. My reactions are: No time to respond in any more detail or to format this for easy reading (fee; free to do so moderators if you can even follow my rambling. What I would say in general to your last comments, is that I think the major difficulty facing the NFLPA is that the NFL has been so ham-handed in how it has handled this that the NFLPA has to be careful not to kill the NFL. The old NFL style is done as best as I can tell and actually the NFLPA would be better off not killing it but insted keep it alive but foster more competition. The NFL is so stupid its hard not to kill them.

The thing which makes me wonder about the NFL that the lockout has made fairly clear to this viewer is that it simply does not strike me that the owners really provide much added value to this product which I enjoy viewing. The owners do clearly own their teams and American society is what Pres. Bush used to call the "ownership society." I would oppose any government entity trying to take property from any individual without some agreed upon form of due process and adequate compensation for this taking. However, in this case we do not have any dispute between the government and a property holder. We simply have a dispute between two private economic institutions, the NFL team owners and the NFLPA in regard to a contract both agreed to. These two entities have petitioned the courts in regard to the meaning of that agreement. Government is basically involved in that the two parties have gone to the court and asked for interpretation. Ironically it is actually the players who are championing the side of individual freedom as they are making a basic claim in the Brady et al. lawsuit that they are individual contractors who must be dealt with individually in the free market. The owners on the other hand are basically arguing that their social compact known as the NFL gives them the ability to do things such as: 1. Impose a contractual agreement on the players since an impasse has been reached. 2. Allows them to force the players to operate with the NFLPA as their bargaining agent even though the NFLPA itself has decertified itself as the bargaining agent for the players. 3. Despite the decert, the NFLPA not only will be forced to represent the players but the last contractual offer from the owners will be forced upon the player without negotiations. 4. Even stranger, rookies not even represented by the NFLPA are going to forced as individuals to negotiate with one and only one employer over the terms of their contract and in addition, adults are simply barred from signing contracts with teams even though they are adults and no other sports league in the country operates this way. I admit that I have a pre-existing bias on these issues, but my bias is toward free market approaches and i am reluctant to buy into a socialized approach to doing business which is what the NFL is advocating. The owners can attempt to take refuge in the practical and make the claim that it would end the NFL as we know it unless their social compact is upheld. However, on the practical side, though I am reluctant to see the government participate in the taking away of property from individuals as the near billon $ NFL teams would be reatly reduced in their worth in a true free market system, I tend to prefer free market approaches so I think the courts should be very interested in a upholding a free market system if it can work. Particularly when the social compact based system which is the NFL is actually supressing the rights of adults to trade in a free market, I hope the courts will find for the players and thus restore football to the fans and uphold and agreement which afterall restore football back to us fans and an agreement which all agree has brought unimagined wealth to the team owners. It is clear to me that the players are on the side of the free market here. Perhaps one can argue for overriding this principal based on the practical aspects of the game. However, when one looks at the practical, the owners have even less of a case to make from my view of reality. 1. The owners did bring critical capital to the NFL in its formative days. Men like Mr. Ralph risked tens of thousands of $ back when this was real money. However, there are clearly ample sources of capital available these days such as: A. The TV networks are the real cash cow which drives the league. The owners are essentially unnecessary if one is looking for cash and the billions of dollars the networks provide actually reduced the team owners to a rate limiting factors which actually makes the whole entity less economically efficient as the owners scrape their nickels from the total receipts without adding much in terms of added value to the product. B. I oppose government confiscation of my cash or that of most others. However, in this case, it is not the government which would be confiscating the assets of the owner but the private parties involved have petitioned the courts to rule on the meaning of their contract. In any case it is clear that the original owners like Mr. Ralph or those who assumed the benefits and liabilities of ownership have been richly paid back from the original investment. Further, the NFL owners have conveniently chosen themselves to demand renegotiation of the CBA earlier than its terms would have forced renegotiation and in the interim the owners have decided not to provide a product to consumers. The team owners are not having this situation forced upon them they chose it. C. In addition to the networks being the true cash cow here, the Green Bay Packers have demonstrated this past season that a publicly owned source of cash is a viable method of producing a product both on the field and off the field. D. It would be a heavier lift, but since the players have gained the majority of the total receipts, the players themselves could potentially be the cash source for the league (or more likely provide a framework to borrow and payback the needed capital from banks or the networks to fund and manage the league. E. Some other capital source I have not even thought of yet. With the decert threat forging the new CBA the talented tenth of NFL players have already demonstrated a real world ability to think outside of the box and liberate new sources of capital. The bottomline I think is I simply do not understand why some posters seem to have such a woodie for the NFL team owners. Their time has passed and they were richly rewarded for their activities and risks in the past. The current owners are simply redundant and I advocate getting some replacement owners to set up the NewFL where the money saved by dealing the current owners out of the process can be allocated or split between lowering costs to the fans or paying the players. In the end, I watch the NFL to see Brady, et al perform. I have zero interest in laying out any dollars to seeing Mr. Ralpj, Al Davis, Dan Snyder, Jerry Jones etc strap on the shoulder pads and take the field. The basic question for those who advocate the owners winning the lawsuits is would you really watch the game if the primary product were the team owners. The players are the product and I think that finding replacement owners would solve a lot of problems here.

I think the most important thing about this is that it provides yet another example of how unnecesary the NFL owners are. There are some useful things missing like coaches but anyone can write a pay check. The Packers demonstrated that a municipally managed team can compete and win in this league. The players are the game and not the team owners. If they can self motivate and show up to play, there are some logistical issues to be dealt with but the Packers show it can be done. The players really need to cut the owners out of this process since they add nothing to the game that cannot be replaced. Its time for replacement owners!

I think one of the interesting side effects will be seen on those teams which cheat. If Bellicheat has no problem filming opposing coaches and involving others in conspiracy to violate league rules, I have few doubts that his playbook and orders are being distributed to players via various channels. The sad thing is that my guess is that BB's on the field competition will likely make the same assessment and then all of them will confront the choice of whether to cheat if they think their opponents are likely cheaters. Bellicheats big crime is that he essentially morally dumbed down the entire league.

The draft remains a crapshoot overhyped to massive importance by ESPN and Mel Kiper's hair.

I know it is a popular thing to lambast Whitner and declare him a bust. However, I think this an extreme view which I think many are motivated to take due to his moronic tweets he is done as Bill he made during the draft. There is a reason why Whitner backtracked on these comments as likely his agent called him and told him that yes he was done as a Bill but its does not help him with contractual negotiations with new teams as an FA to diminish potential stops for him. In my view of his play was Whitner a bog disappointment? Yep. No doubt about it. Was he a bust? Nope. Ryan Leaf was a bust. Mike Williams was a bust. Aaron Maybin shows all the signs of legitimately being called a bust after two pretty horrid seasons. However, even in this case, the conventional wisdom is for one time correct that it is pretty silly declare a player a bust UNTIL he deserves a cut after 3 seasons. If one makes seemingly legitimate judgments based on onfield performance the classic case is that Eric Moulds after two horrid seasons was well on his way to busthood. However, in a combination of he learned how to be a Pro and the Bills braintrust figured how to use him he became a perrenial Pro Bowl candidate for the Bills. This is off the point in terms of player comparison but it clarifies for me the definition of s bust. Whitner showed good potential in his rookie year and was pretty clearly the best safety rookie that year and better than Huff the safety drafted before him. His second year while not outstanding on a bad team was impressive enough that there was legit talk of him as a Pro candidate if he showed the same level of progress his second to third year as he did his rookie to second year. However, though he did try to step up vocally as a leader his body did not cash the checks his mouth wrote. Last year was not a bad year in terms of individual play by Whitner on a horrendous D. However, all generally agree that the DBs were not a big of a problem as the DLs and LBs were. Whitner was a big disappointment, and I agree the Bills should look elsewhere for an SS (unless the lockout allows you to extend him another year at a reasonable cost and then the DB youngsters we drafted can play well enough to take the job but I would not expect Whitner to lose it as once again he would need to perform well for FA. I think you exaggerate to call Whitner a bust though we are likely done with him.

There are methods used routinely to reduce if not virtually totally escape what folks who are addicted to this issue call a death tax. Its what trust and estate law is all about. The thing to realize is that there are a bunch of different ways that a person can logically (or even illogically because there is no law against being stupid and often times these trust and estate decisions are made by folks who are older and sometimes near or at Alzheimers and facing the ultimate unavoidable outcome of death). Mr. Ralph could easily be one of those like a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates who has already made the decision not to pass on untold amounts of wealth to heirs because he has seen that simply giving untold wealth to your heirs without them doing anything to earn it or their place in life simply kills people as human beings. I think all folks want to try to make sure their heirs do not face a life of poverty, but many have little desire to simply penalize their heirs by leaving them ungodly amounts of money. If Mr. Ralph were to leave significant chunks of his holdings (including the Bills if he wants) in the form of sn irrevocable trust he can escape the massive taxation which you seem to assume as a given. Not passing on his wealth to his wife or direct family may be the best gift he ever gives to his offspring. He may want to simply give this "burden" to his heirs who unlike him did little or nothing to earn it. No one knows and it is stupid and likely simply wrong to ASSUME what is his central motivation in this regard.

The whole hypothesis is off-season interesting since there is no "real" football action which would render any speculation as a distraction. This hypothesis becomes even a more attractive waste of time as due to the lockout the owners have triggered a series of events that has denied us fans even the distraction of offseason moves. Yet even with this near perfect storm of events making even a cockeyed hypothesis legit for consideration, the initial post in this thread has such internal inconsistencies as to render the analysis in internally contradictory and renders the hypothesis silly. In order to believe the presented hypothesis one has to assume Mr. Rslph is such a smart mind that he can predict the changes in the economy down to amazing detail, but then is so stupid he makes decisions and handles the Bills to an over 0 for a decade playoff less streak. In fact he then makes radical moves to prepare for the estate tax switch and then fails to die in a timely way to take advantage of estate tax switch. He sees things coming that no one else knows and also proves to be an idiot. Any theory which is quite upfront in making huge speculative assumptions and then quickly follows these leaps of faith with a pretty detailed description of what happened simply contradicts itself.

The Constitution does "guarantee" US citizens the right for government to at least recognize the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It also sets up a clear system of checks and balances which is based on the understanding that no one person has it completely correct in interpreting what the Constitution means. It also has a clear and complicated system for changing the Constitution as it recognizes that the original words will simply no longer apply to restrict the powerful from taking over the government and claiming that there is only one true wisdom and they alone understand it. The Constitution is a great document specifically because it recognizes that its words must change with reality and it sets up a system where those who claim correct knowledge will have their powers checked and balanced.

Certainly is Luck is as good as advertised (at Peyton Manning levels but even this is so far from a guarantee as Ryan Leaf was the next word out of virtually everyone's mouth- even Peyton performing as he has done took years and tons of help before he was finally delivered his one SB win)then probably draft him. However, if there is any doubt about his bonafides due to something like an injury in the year (or two)of collegiate ball he has then by all means pass. Gailey has no record which anyone has linked to or posted or linked to that demonstrates any success at training and developing a rookie QB. His experience and proven success has been with vets like Fiedler, Kordell or even Fitzy who started did OK but failed to be so good his original team that they moved the world to keep him. We need to wait for reality and then decide,

Exactly!!! I think the players led by the Brady, et al crew to move as quickly as they can to set up what I call the NewFL and develop alternative employment without the current NFL team owners being a middle-man who only adds cost to the game. Replacement owners is by far the best way to go if the NFL refuses to produce a product.

Yet, this maneuver whether a transparent tactic or a legitimate contractual move merely underscores the point that what we have here is a dispute between forces who are arguing for a free market approach (this is the basis of the NFLPA claim that the workers are independent contractors) and reliance on a more socialist system where the NFL restrains individual rights through its social compact. Om the end conservative justices will have to choose between their faith in a free market or their endorsement of a socialized system which benefits a few team owner. In the end I hope conservative minded judges will stick to a belief in free markets. If the courts side with owners it simply defines the golden rule as he who who has the most gold rules.

If the politics of the judges has nothing to do with this because its and open and shut black letter law issue, then how do you explain the FACT that two MN based federal judges (Doty and Nelson) found decisively on the side of the NFLPA position? They went so far as to say that the owners brief and positions on this case were so likely to fail as a matter of law that neither was willing to stay their ruling until an appeal was made. The appeals court then by a 2 vote to 1 vote margin (I believe these decisions happen to break upon appointment lines with the Dem appointed judge finding for the NFLPA and the GOP appointed judges taking what I understand is an unusual step of a total reversal of the lower court ruling (it happens but apparently on such a clear decision by the lower court in a manner which indicates that an opposite legal reading is correct is apparently unusual). What I think this adds up to is that differing people can easily have differing views on this closely contested issue. However, what does appear to be WRONG is your contention that this is a simple legal issue where one view is clearly the legal read. This is an item of legal dispute with both sides having rational reasons for their views. It is simply incorrect to claim there is only one right view on this issue. It is simply incorrect to claim that who appointed which judge has no impact on how this closely contested issue gets decided.

I think you are correct in understanding that Mr. Ralph's consistent yammering about the difficulties of being in a small market and essentially crying poverty simply runs against the most real numbers which we have: Many TSW folks have made the correct judgment that when the NFL team owners assess the situation in regard to a Buffalo franchise and a Toronto franchise (or LA Earthquakes or whatever) they are likely to make their judgement based on the sole criterion of what makes them the most money. In this light the choice between the small Buffalo market and the far larger Toronto market (or LA or elsewhere) is clear. HOWEVER, the folks who make this simple comparison actually make a simple mistake in this calculation. WHAT IS THE CHOICE FOR THE NFL WHICH MAKES THE INDIVIDUAL OWNER THE MOST MONEY WHEN CONSIDERING THE BUFFALO AND TORONTO FRANCHISES? The answer to this question obviously ain't Buffalo! However, the answer obviously ain't Toronto either! The obvious answer for which maximizes NFL profits is BOTH. Is it possible for two major league sports franchises to survive operating in Toronto and in Buffalo? Ask the Sabres and the Maple Leafs. If the NFL were to walk away from the home of a franchise worth almost a billion dollars by independent estimates, it certainly would carry a lot of this wealth to its new home. However, it would be walking away from a huge amount of cash money which will be deducted from the team's actual value which involve cash money which cannot be transported, such as: A. 44,000+ season ticket holders. For those who claim we must move how much do you estimate this is worth that the NFL is all set to walk away from. B. Some amount of cash which goes into the coffers for parking, beer and weenies at the game, Zubazz pants and other team gear. For those who claim we must move how much do you estimate this is worth that the NFL is all set to walk away from. C. Decades of relationships and contracts with a plethora of commercial buyers who would all love to pay money to TV networks, newsletters, and other forms of advertisement. When West Herr or whatever car company it is buys Steve Takers time to advertise their product and pay the media for print, TV, and radio saturation they have decided to advertise the Bills and the Bills never pay a cent. For those who claim we must move how much do you estimate this is worth that the NFL is all set to walk away from. All of this can certainly be rebuilt in the new town, but it will take effort and most of all $. If the NFL walks away from Buffalo they not only walk away from 100s of millions dollars which cannot be moved to the new franchise, but you also create a new cost which keeping the Bills here does not have. I have yet to see economic case made that moving the franchise makes economic sense for the league. Maybe it does, but outside of the conventional wisdom that Toronto or LA is a bigger market than Buffalo I have not seen any statement of collected and analyzed facts to support this beyond conventional wisdom, The bigger issue is that I really have not seen anyone make the case why the NFL looking at the money currently actually made in Buffalo and what potentially might be made in Toronto the NFL would not choose both. In order to secure a franchise ownership whether by a new franchise or acquisition of an old one you need the votes of 3/4 of the owners. It is simply a mistake to assume that this decision will be made based on what is best for one Art Modell or 1 Georgia Frontiere. The decision will be made based on what makes the most money for the NFL as a whole. Some observers also make the mistake in addition to understanding the individual team owner does not make the ultimate decision but also misread what is the market, The market is not this franchise city or that franchise city. If so, teams would have been out of Jacksonville, Buffalo, TN or wherever to LA or somewhere in dotcom land long ago. The cash money is provided by the TV networks and the real customers are eyeballs all over the world. When it comes from making money from by far the largest payer to the NFL, the name of the game is to get eyeballs in Toronto, Mexico City, and Tokyo and Peking if you can figure out the time zone logistics. The key to making profits for every NFL team as a group and individually is to sell beer, cars, soap and saki in ads. Getting a franchise fee from Rogers communication or somebody in lA is not a small thing in and of itself (but split 31 ways it actually is pretty small). Actually selling 40,000+ tickets is also a chunk of change. However, it simply pales in comparison to the billions to be made by expanding to new cities in particular in new countries. The primary value of the Bills to the NFL is not in the relative chump change of ticket sales and franchise fees. Its value is that what the NFL is trying to sell to Mexico City, Toronto, a host of European cities, Tokyo, Sydney or whoever has eyeballs a story. Actually if the Bills leave Buffalo and the story used to attract investment from a new city are pictures of crying and depressed WNYers because someone stole their team this is not good story telling or selling. The Bills value comes from being a fellow team with ties and history back to the AFL which the NFL is happy to sell membership to new markets to join the club. I think it is virtually certain the Bills are not moving because the NFL makes a lot more money if the franchise stays right where it is.

How this horrible result happens would have such much larger ramifications for the Bills future that getting the #1 pick and who to choose would be among our lesser issues, If this Nix/Gailey led team such a huge step backwards with a team which after 2 drafts was more their team than the one the inherited I really think their jobs would be in danger. The question of who the new HC/GM would be and their philosophic direction would be the big question rather than who the QB would be.

My proposal is the the NFLPA is in the midst of a strategy to get replacement owners My personal hope is that the NFLPA takes a lesson from the NFLPA of the late 80s and is thinking about how by thinking outside of the old AFL-CIO union style they can totally remake how the NFL is run to the benefit of fans like me and other Bills lovers and to the players financial benefit. The team owners were likely full of themselves and feeling like true captains of industry after they simply crushed the old AFL-CIO style NFLPA led by Ed Garvey. However, the owners overplayed their hand in two ways in that they kicked the butt of the NFLPA so badly that the membership was willing to consider radical proposals like the one to decertify which was designed by a bunch of smart NYC lawyers. The second mistake the team owners made was that they had put in place a plan which saw the colleges (primarly led by taxpayer subsidy pay the cost of training and developing young athletes into NFL players). The NFL took advantage of this subsidy to get the league to pay for training and development. but the team owners got a situation where they did not contract with them until they had been adults. The NFLPA is making them pay for it right now. If the union's goal is really too weaken but not kill the owners they can possibly parley this dispute into building what I call the NewFL where the new teams are owner by: 1. New wealthy individuals, or corporations, or the TV networks, or municipalities, or the players themselves. The owners basically provide with either management or capital. As the Packers showed the owners are outmoded as essential for either role. My proposal is replace the current owners.

Likely another example of the significant subsidies provided by us taxpayers to the rich guys who are team owners in the NFL. We see it here on a small potatoes basis (compared to the megabillions which the TV networks and the players produce for the team owners) here in Erie County where Ralph cries small market poverty and then does not sell the naming rights as County taxpayers name the stadium after him. The big ticket government subsidy for the NFL is where unlike sports like MLB and the NHL who pay for the training and development of athletes, this done often through state supported schools like UB which laid out big tax dollars to go Division I. One wonders when folks who seem to whine about the owners being "forced" into a position where they have suspended football unilaterally (in case folks did not notice the NFLPA position is to retain the current agreement and when the lower court found in their favor football was restored for us fans). It is actually the players and their union which is calling for a free market but it is the owners who ran kicking and screaming from the last decert threat to embrace a social compact system over the free market. It will be quite interesting if the truly aggrieved party in this fight of billionaires vs. millionaires, the college athlete stands up as says that it is simply un-American the way the draft forces individuals to negotiate with one and only one business. The NFL and their PARTNERS against individual liberty even agreed to bar adults from signing contracts until they are 21. This is why decertification is a potent threat because our courts have allowed this restraint on individual trade because the NFLPA is certified to represent the rights of players and they provide a figleaf allowing this restraint on individuals. It is part of the reason why the owners stance is so foolish in that if they get what they want in terms of beating down the NFLPA I really doubt that any court is going to be able to allow individual and free market rights to be so trampled by the welfare queen team owners. Thus stadium subsidy is simply another version of this travesty against what has made America such an economic power.

I for one do not hate Gus Johnson as for this viewer its the rare announcer who is so bad he makes the game difficult to watch (Dierdorf comes closes to being bad from my perspective). A good announcer to me is one who knows when to shut up and let the majesty of the event or the achievement express itself. I think one of the best announcing jobs I have heard was Al Michaels at the 1980 US semifinal win over the Soviets mostly because he did the good play by play that comes with many hockey games where the action is so fast the announcer's main job is to augment the action by supplying names to specific actions, but it was a very good job in that he held his comments to one summary that expressed a lot of the magnitude of the moment "Do You Believe in Miracles?" and then for the most part shut up over the next few moments. This is good announcing for this viewer.

I think John Madden is one the prime examples of the game announcer who became bigger than the game he was broadcasting. I find it hard to blame him as he was actually pretty darn entertaining and his use of new items like the telestrator did add to a viewers understanding of the game within the game. However, the many imitators looking to make a name for themselves who do not have the breadth of knowledge and experience and a truthful aw shucks wonder at this boys game have detracted from enjoyment of the game.

I also do not think you are in the minority. On the face of it I think there is a camp which likes Johnson and a camp which dislikes him and my guess is that they are fairly evenly split. However, I think the vast majority of watchers do not tune in looking for a particular announcer and actually will not refuse to watch their team simply because there is an announcer they hate. There certainly are those of us who look back fondly at the 70s game which actually had no announcers and only used ambient crowd noise. Though this game was panned by those who make their money commenting on the job announcers who were left out of the game, I thought it was an interesting experiment. I would love to see another announcer less game today. Given technological advances like the line on the screen which shows the first down point, enhanced graphics which consistently show you the game clock, down and distance and other relevant factoids, I could easily get by with an announcer who pops in from time to time (as little as possible) to give me info such as an explanation of an odd ref call which does not lend itself to a crawl. Particularly given today's internet with simultaneous game info and better directional mikes which can give you enhanced sound, I am confident that the few big problems I felt with the announcerless game could be dealt with and annoying and stupid announcers (like Dierdorf) and the vacilating homer calls many announcers endorse based on what they perceive is the story line would be be great.

Persomally, I am not that concerned about whether the taxpayers or the taxusers like Mr. Ralph pay for this as this cost is really deminimus compared to the much larger subsidies going on between taxpayers and the welfare beneficiaries of the NFL ( one might call them welfare queens but in general the boys club does not include women). My observations on your comment is that surely you are not saying that because a lot of other teams do this it is right. In my view I am not worried about this because it is wrong buy it is a pretty small one in the multi-billion dollar picture. However, there should be an understanding among all those commenting on this that it is a small example of your and my tax dollars being used to save money for the incredibly well-to-do in our society. Deals like this are small potatoes but it is one of the reason why some of us find it so laughable when the NFL demands to reopen its agreement with the players because the owners are not making enough money off of the TV networks shoveling $ into the NFL maw. Please. It also points out that the grand taxpayer subsidy which the NFL gets and is different that what almost all major sports get is that in the NFL system they actually have arranged it so that colleges pay googobs of money to train and develop their athletes, On other major leagues like baseball and hockey the teams pay a lot of money to operate minor league franchises. The teams pay huge money to kids (or actually the parents of kids in speculative contracts. They then train and develop these youngsters dropping them off the ladder as they climb up to AAA ball and eventually enter the SHOW. In pro football though, the deal is that an intricate system run by the colleges trains and develops these youngsters until they can be drafted and signed by the NFL. Where is the subsidy? Look no further than a lionshare of the collegiate system is paid for using your and my taxdollars to fund this training and development activity. An example is a school like UB which is heavily engaged write now in trying to get the NYS legislature to pass the UB 20/20 proposal which involved massive taxpayer spending. UB spent tons of money in the pass decade moving up to Division I status. Part of the strategy to build a competitor is to try to turn UB into a school which specializes in producing pro WRs just as schools like Stanford and USC are known as QB factories or NB is an interior lineman factory. Even worse the NFL squashes individual rights by restricting draftees until their age group hits 21. While other athletes are signing contacts at 16, NFL players are forced to not be able to sign even though they are adults 18-21. It really is amazing that the owners make money hand over fist and now are pre-emptively using an out clause in the agreement to try to pry money back from the players. All of that while these welfare pimps the teamowners are benefitting from the public. OK do it and thats fine, I just wish the owners would stop insulting us and saying its because they have it so contractually hard.