Hplarrm

I think the case you make that the Bills MUST pick a QB at #3 falls apart on 2 points when one looks at reality. 1. If you look at the 12 teams which made the playoffs last year then it would only be delusional to advocate acquiring your franchise QB through some other means than drafting a QB at #3 if all or at least the vast majority of these 12 franchise QBs were acquired with a very high first round pick. This is simply not the case as the vast majority of these QBs were acquired from other teams which drafted them pr in later round picks. I think that we are more likely to get a franchise QB from getting a QB capable of leading the team to the playoffs through methods like FA (how the Saints acquired Brees), trade (how KC acquired Cassel), through a late round draft pick (how the Pats acquired Brady), or even if you insist on drafting a 1st rounder the Ravens acquired Flacco much later in the 1st than the #3 or the Pack acquired Rogers who sat on the bench for several years behind Favre later in the first round. The Bills can quite likely take the step you call delusional of trading down in the 1st from picking a QB at #3 and still get a first rounder plus extra quality help by trading down. Steps you label as delusional have proven to be effective at getting a QB at least capable of leading a team to the playoffs or of becoming eventually a franchise QN. 2. The rubber hits the road with the actual player and by claiming it is delusional to not draft a QB in essence you are saying draft Newton or Gabbert. Which one is it? It appears likely NC is gonna grab one of these players so do you advocate trading up to get the player you have chosen. If instead you choose another QB, it appears likely that if NC goes one QB or the other that the Bills or Cincy is gonna take the other and trading down to still get this other QB you have identified besides Newton or Gabbert becomes possible. Why is it delusional to get the QB you want in the 1st AND also extra value by trading down? If anyone is delusional it is you.

Unfortunately, many civic authorities hand out these deals everyday not necessarily because they are good business investments but because of bribery ocassionally in the illegal form of baksheesh but primarily in the legalized bribery known as campaign contributions. It is simply naive to assume that the handing out of these gifts is due to them being more than justifiable rather than flat out sound investments.

This has happened though as best as I can tell from Mr. Ralph foolishly having his team do stupid non-football moves in a continuing effort to replace the once in a football lifetime find of Jim Kelly. These events are: 1. Mr. Ralph made a handshake deal only he could make to promise Jimbo to reward him contractually in his next contract because the salary cap made it impossible for the Bills to up his payment before he hit FA, This was a stupid non-football intelligent move as even this uniformed outside observer could see that in his final football season Jimbo was done. He got concussed in the playoffs (he was good enough to lead a good team to the playoffs even though his own play was clearly ravaged by time and a lot of hits on a very tough man) and Mr. Ralph should have had the team move in the draft a year earlier or acquired an heir apparent in FA but the Bills waited and did not in a foolish thought that Jimbo would last forever. Mo one gets out of this time alive and Mr. Ralph made bad football judgments (that only he could make as it was his handshake promising his money which he apparently paid in a million $ walking away money to Jimbo which I think totally violated the cap). 2. Made a bad non-football mistake in not acquiring an heir apparent to Jimbo in what I think was 1995 so that instead they had to reach for TC as the best QB available to them in the 2nd round of the draft that year. TC was likely worth a third highest on most draft boards from what I could tell, If the Bills had drafted a potential heir QB the year before or gotten one through FA. This move of going for the next QB would have been a tough move which perhaps just is the obvious thing to do in 20/20 hindsight. However, even this uninformed fool was surprised when they did not pick a developmental QB late in the draft the year before they got TC and I simply assumed that we had an FA deal in the works or there was something about Jimbo I did not know as he looked done to this outsider. The sad truth is he was done and Mr. Ralph made a stupid football move in assuming he had another contract coming when it turned out thanks to playoff hits he was done. 3. They rushed TC to start when Jimbo was forced out even though he had clearly demonstrated that though he was incredibly accurate he had happy feet and bailed out to fast when he got pressured. Perhaps one could never train him out of this, but the Bills put themselves in a position where they did not have the time to try because Mr. Ralph made a bad football judgment that Jimbo had more time left than he had. Perhaps this was understandable even though this not fully informed outsider could see it in Jimbos final two years, but what is unforgiveable is that mr. Ralph made a decision only he could make to violate the salary cap by promising to reward Jimbo in his next contract which never happened. 4. I think the next step in the sad tale was the Billy Joe Hobert mess where out of desperation they sent a third to Oakland for a player whose mental make-up was so bad he not only let his teammates down by failing to do even basic preparation as a back-up but then stuck it to his teammates even further by publicly admitting his neglect. He got fired saving himself from being rightfully lynched by his teammates and the loyal fans. If Mr. Ralph was not involved in pulling the trigger on this mess it was malfeasance for him not be involved, 5. The coaching staff made a bold move which righted the ship of football state after this by risking signing Doug Flutie to a make good contract. The FO then made a critical error in that they not only traded for RJ, but then simply gave him a guaranteed contract which made it impossible for the team to honor its commitment to DF that he would win or lose the starter job on the field. Again Mr. Ralph was likely involved or it was malfeasance if he was not since so much of the team and his money was guaranteed to RJ. 6. Nr. Ralph was publicly all over the decision to start RJ in the playoffs after he shredded an Indy team that clearly was not playing hard after it became clear from the scoreboard that a win against the Bills would do them no good in playoff standing as their main opponent for seeding was winning by a lot, Seeing their starting OLB go down early in the Bills game with what proved to be a season ending injury simply set RJ up to shred Indy. In the what proved to be fruitless search for a new Jimbo RJ got the start in the last Bills playoff game and the team lost. 7. Etx, etc with ill-fated efforts with Bledsoe, JP and Edwards where the Bills made stupid fatal QB mistake after stupid mistake as they attempted to find the next Jim Kelly (even Bledsoe proved to be a demonstrably good sign where he proved to be Comeback player of the year in his first season as a Bill- if you disagree then simply name the QB who had a season you deem better than Bledsoe's who should have been on the Pro Bowl squad instead of him). However, the Bills grasped defeat from the jaws of simply cutting our loses when they extended Bledsoe after a horrible second year here. This was the fatal QB mistake which I lodge in Mr. Ralph's foolish efforts to find another Jimbo, I cannot do anymore details because it simply hurts too much, Why this is relevant is that I think what the Bills should have done (and this is 20/20 hindsight) is actually build a team instead of making dumb big moves to attempt to get a franchise QB. To reach for Newton or Gabbert in the 1st round or Mallett in the 2nd instead of focusing on building a team with need picks of a DE, OLB, and RT to be merely adequate would be a mistake in my book. The same mistake we have made time and again for a decade in a fruitless search for the next Jimbo.

Why take a chance om a QB in Round 1 or 2 when there is general agreement that once Luck decided to stay in that neither of the two best QBs in the class Newton or Gabbert are likely to be franchise QBs? In addition, if you did spend a high draft pick on QB, this essentially guarantees you are not gonna get the best starter you can on a D which needs two starters to merely be adequate, and actually if you can find a way to trade down you should get a first round choice lower down in a deep draft and another second which might give you a shot at finding two or maybe three starters from this draft. The worst thing is that lets say Newton or Gabbert actually might have the talent to ultimately become a franchise QB! However, by forgoing the opportunity to geta potential game changer on D or even better if you trade down the chance to draft two potential starters you need on D. Both situation involve chances rather than certainty but the chances of finding a starting LB of Pos quality in the second can be done but finding a franchise QB even at #3 is not just more dicey than finding a potential starter at OLB in the 2nd but actually there is a pretty good guarantee that no QB taken in the 1st or 2nd among available men is gonna be ready to start for a year or more. This also is a reason why I hope we do not waste an early pick on a QB as this player will not only primarily need to run for his life rather than study the game behind an OL 2 players(and a year of chemistry building )away from adequacy. The highly drafted QB should still be on the bench learning for hopefully for use in 2012, Yet the pressure from a few loud noisy fans who will be urged on by GR and Sully will pressure for this highly drafted QB will falk uder pressure to start him right away. The pressure will be on him to win but because we chose him we likely found only 1 of the two defenders we needs, I agree we need a franchise QB but FA is a better shot at finding him through FA than an early draft pick,

It is a great irony that a socialistic model which the NFL uses now brings in more money than the always at war model that resulted in the owners kicking the players unions butt in the mid 80s with the replacement player gambit.

It really all depends upon the owner. If your owner is a business man, the NFL without a salary cap becomes a very difficult business to operate. The costs will escalate beyond your control and the owner would need to escalate his payments or face the wrath of customers with tangible proof he does not care enough about winning to pay for it. On the other hand, if your owner is a sportsman as Pegula seems to be at least verbally, he is committed to spending amounts not justified for a businessman but doable if you have it for a sportsman. Of course you only win if you are good smart sportsmen like the Rooneys in Pittsburgh and it does not matter how much money you have if you are an idiot like Dan Snyder with the Deadskins. Yes, the era of the businessman like a Ralph is over. However, the era of the bad sportsman like Golisano or the potentially good sportsman like Pegula has begun. The good news for football fans in this small market is that there actually even in our economically troubled town there is plenty of money that likely would want a team here like a Golisano, Pegula, and potentially Jeremy Jacobs. Further, the game plan for the NFL appears to be to serve the true market which is the TV networks and the search for the many eyeballs in Mexico City, Europe. Toronto. and Asia. With the true customers and source of cash in mind, the fact the Bills have historic ties to old NFL and AFL is worth far more to the NFL than selling a few more tickets in some other town. I doubt the Bills move (amd only to Toronto if they do) because the money is lodged not in the individual market but in telling a story to the multiple eyeballs around the world. The money says the Bills stay in this small market as the rabid fans here make for good storytelling for new eyeballa.

Not necessarily based on the article which was posted. He did not use the derogatory term Wigger (a white version of the N word and not used in polite conversation). He referred to him as "street" which also does not specifically say "black" (African-American, people of color, colored people or whatever wording is current or you choose to use). In fact, based on the words attributed to him in the article, the only racist assumption here may be yours if you assign the word "street" to Americans of African descent which is a prejudgment that all people of that lineage are street. No one would confuse Barack Obama or any editor of the Harvard Law Review as being "street". If you draw that conclusion one may not have to look that far for an answer to the question of who is making assumptions which simply do not apply in all cases based on race. .

Once again thanks for the links to and interpretation of reality on what is often a fact-free rant that tends to populate this board (for example, one constant poster claims that the players only receive 40% of the total take of the NFL when someone else was nice enough to provide links to documents which show the take to be in the mid- 50%s year after year this decade and I have clearly referenced numeric based public claims by the players that any salary cap agreement must start with a 6 in the newest CBA(. The facts such as it is the owners who are disatisfied with the current CBA as they exercised and optional re-opener is a clear imdication they are dissed about the deal which seems unlikely if they are getting 60% of the take given the NFLPA is historically on record demanding 52% in the pre- current CBA times. However. I digress. At any rate, if this is a "mere" quick read I would love to see what you do with a thorough one. The big point which I think scouring this document looking for proof of taxpayer subsidy for the Bills and the NFL is that without regard to whether it is here, the biggest taxpayer subsidy to the welfare queens in the NFL is actually likely found elsewhere in this racket. Other major professional sports leagues like MLB and the NHL lay out beaucoup bucks for the identification, speculation, training and development of athletes. 16 year olds are routinely scouted (which means that these leagues pay scouts to look at 12 and 14 year olds getting into the pipeline) and signed to teams the pro sports pay for speculative contracts signed by the parents of these minors and then they are sent to team owned or contracted minor leagues to train and develop them as players. Yet, in pro football, all of these training and development costs are borne by outside parties, namely the colleges, who not only train these athletes, but also actively participate in a series of pro days and feed the combines so these players can get detailed logistical assessments. The NFL with the partnership of the NFLPA then eliminates the rights of these individuals to sell their services to the highest bidder as most Americans can do when they choose to apply to IBM. Microsoft or Apple (or Ford, GM, or Chrysler if they do not have athletic talent and can only work on a manufacturing line) but restricts them to one and only one employer through the draft. Where is the taxpayer subsidy in this denial of basic rights to individuals (even adults are banned from the NFL draft until their birth year reaches 21). Taxpayers like you and me subsidize this player development and training through our support of state run universities. For example, under William Greiner, UB spent tons of my money to qualify as a Division I school and has a strategy of attracting top quality athletes to UB with exorbitant expenditures on a weight room and other player facilities. They are publicly trying to turn UB into a pro attractive effort as a WR factory much like schools like Stanford and USC have become NFL QB factories and taxpayer funded schools like U Nebraska have become NFL OL factories, You, me, and other taxpayers pay a massive subsidy to the NFL to provide this service. The main thing which makes this funny however, is that the NFL profits from a system where they do not pay much for training, development, and speculation on minors. However, they do not buy the loyalty of these athletes until they are adults. Most athletes are coddled lemmings who have not even made decisions for themselves beyond whether to get the steak or the chicken at the training table. They are told when to sleep, when to work, and even when they are allowed to play with curfews their entire lives. However, there is a talented tenth represented by me such as Gene Upshaw, Troy Vincent and recently by Drew Brees and the men who have stood up for individual freedom in the Brady et al. lawsuit who are a talented tenth who provide the player union leadership. These adults recognize that there is a partnership between the NFL and NFLPA and most impressively have pursued strategies like decertification to make themselves arguably the majority partner in this relationship. Unlike other pro leagues taxplayers subsidize a significant part of training and development of athletes and this effort likely makes the likely individual stadium subsidy provided by the County for the Ralph pale in significance.

I agree with your conclusion. I disagree with your reasons for making that conclusion. I do not think it is premature to assume/hope that the Pegula attitude makes a difference for this team. What last night's game showed is simply how close the margin between winning and losing are. A 1-0 nothing game simply does not get any closer. A bunch of critical performances like Miller being absolutely perfect in results in the net and Kaleta being a game time decision by Lindy to start simply proved in real life results to be a game winning decision. While it is premature to call the series over, winning this game by the tightest of possible margins should not be ignored (unless the Flyers redouble their efforts one does not want to think about what losing your first two games at home does to one's chances in a seven game series and it will be an interesting and significant test to see if the Sabres can stick a fork in them on Saturday. However, the reasoning stated to get this conclusion that Pegula had shown how to build a team through the draft speaks for itself as sound thinking based in reality. It is the ultimate in what I refer to as fact-free thinking though I agree with the conclusion reached. Even a completely broken clock is right on target twice a day.

Many thanks for sharing actual facts rather than the fact-free opinions that often are the commerce on these boards. I often engage in throwing mere opinions out myself, but I at least try to base them in factoids such as my sense that while is mere language in the CBA which promises them a % of total revenues that begins with a 6 (60.5% is my understanding of the final calculation) the reality is now that under the current CBA the players are arguably the majority partner in the NFL receiving slightly over 50% of the total receipts as shown by the facts you share. The notion that the players only receive 40% is a rant that some have made on TSW but this notion is not supported by any references or credible links. Again looking at reality, if in fact the owners are the ones receiving 60% of the revenues then why did they opt to re-open the agreement if in fact they were bringing in a clear majority of the revenue? The answer is that the players have had the owners on the run since the mid-80s lockout when they brought in replacement players. The players were looking to strike under the old AFL-CIO union approach under the leadership of Ed Garvey and planned to go out after the regular season concluded and the players had received most of their cash but the owners had not yet collected the major share of their bucks when came with the TV ratings and ticket taking during the playoffs. Players could break the lockout and cross the lines and get paid if they agreed to the NFL overall terms, By pushing the date forward to a point where the players were not collecting game checks this was how they broke the union. By decertifying itself as a bargaining agent, the NFLPA (which still exists as an entity even if it decertifies itself as a bargaining agent) the NFLPA forced the owners to actually engage in a free market where it bid for individual player to sign personal services contracts. The NFLPA is a partner with the NFL because the courts have determined that individual rights to free market negotiation can only be abridged if the team owners and the NFLPA operate together in partnership embodied in the CBA. By decertifying itself as a bargaining agent the team owners are left to either use the free market to negotiate with individual players or to attempt to collude with each other to set salaries and allocate players. With the NFLPA decertifying itself, it forces the owners to operate using free market principles and the NFL cannot stand that.

The thought that the NFLPA is undertaking a strategy which will remake the game in a new form in a manner which will greatly benefit the players is actually quite consistent with what has happened in the NFL over the past 15-20 years. If someone predicted in the late 80s after the NFL owners locked out the players as part of the mid-80s dispute that the late 80s would see: 1. The NFLPA threaten to decertify itself 2. This would lead to the CBA agreement which saw the owners agree to the salary cap which awarded the players up to 70+% of a designated gross. 3. The renegotiation of the CBA to a level where Gene Upshaw dictated prior to negotiations that the new cap would be based on total gross receipts rather than a designated gross and that the number for the player take must start with a 6_%. They too would have been accused of sniffing glue or worse. No one knows what will happen for sure, but based on the results of the past decade plus it seems wrongheaded to simply conclude the owners hold all the cards when the recent past shows the players really have dictated what the agreement would be such that the owners chose to renegotiate the past deal prior to the formal ending of the previous agreement. It seems clear to me that the players goal is to maximize their take. It seems clear to me that the players take is maximized when there is a competition between owners following the good old American way. Whether the new league succeeds as was the case with the AFL or the new league founders as was the case with the USFL or the WFL, the players have seen their salaries ramp up be it the Joe Namath or the Jim Kelly case. Brady, et al. have filed a suit demanding that they have a right as Americans to bargain in a fair playing field without individual team owners colluding to set salaries or force individuals to bargain with one and only one owner. The US courts dating back to the days of them finding for Marvin Miller and the MLB players have routinely followed the line of Teddy Roosevelt and the days when the GOP stood up for individual rights against corporations that undercut competition by establishing trusts that individual rights rule in the good ol US of A. They have allowed individual rights to be abridged only in the case where individuals use their right of free association and assembly to organize to provide a check and balance to the power of corporations to establish trusts. It my hope as a good American that the rights of individuals will prevail over the more socialistic approach taken by the NFL team owners.

You seem to have an overinflated sense of the importance of owners to the NFL game. Would you really pay any money to see Ralph Wilson and Al Davis don shoulder pads and play the game? Tom Brady, et al and the individual players who have sued the owners are THE GAME. The owners back in the day of George Halas were necessary to the game as the NFL owners back in the day were the only ones willing to risk any capital to fund the league and were real football guys who managed the teams. In today's reality because the early owners took a risk (a risk they have been repaid handsomely for taking actually) and built a product which quite frankly the networks actually provide the capital that drives the game. The NFL owners are simply having trouble dealing with the fact that they are now simply a partner with the players who are actually the GAME and in fact since they gave up the vast majority of the total take to the players in the last CBA in writing they are actually the minority partners in this enterprise. My sense is that the NFLPA is actually quite happy not to kill the owners as minority partners because actually they maker tons of money in this situation and the real game for them is to actually keep the minority partners around but find a way to create a new league with new sources of capital which will allow the NFLPA to represent professional football players in the NFL and what I call the NewFL of a new league which improves the product and the players take by the good old American method of competition. The ultimate answer to me for this is to find replacement owners to compete with the current NFL owners.

The other problem in terms of Mallet not fitting our current HC/OC is that in the past Galley has no record anyone has been able to show me of making good use of a rookie QB. The Galley style to this point has been to take a vet QB who has failed in previous gigs (or at least not impressed to hand onto the job) like Fiedler, Bulger, Kordell and yes even Fitzy and make it work with his system. The archetype of the Galley QB is a vet who has seen a bunch of NFL Ds, who is football bright, has a relatively quick release and enough pocket awareness and athleticism to make escapes when needed. The past does not guarantee future actions, but it can be a pretty strong indicator. I see no evidence beyond wishful thinking and Sully/WGR whining that indicates Galley is really going to invest more than a 4th rounder in a rookie QB. I do not think Fitzy is the franchise QB we want and need, but I am even more certain that none of the rookie QBs are the QB Galley wants and needs.

Not exactly. The NFLPA still exists as an entity (I think it is a not for profit entity incorporated under IRS regulations- likely an entity known as a 501c3 but I am not sure of the exact subsection). It has chosen under US Labor law and consistent with the CBA which bars NFLPA members from filing individual lawsuits as long as the CBA is operational to decertfy itself as the bargaining agent for the players to agree to and operate the CBA. However, the NFLPA still exists as an entity but now that the the CBA is not operational because the NFLPA hs decertified itself it is still operating to organize actions like the individual lawsuits filed by Brady et al. In fact the NFL is arguing in court that the decertification is a sham and the NFLPA is still acting as an agent for all the players despite decertidication on the specific point of the CBA. By decertifying the players have actually gained more rights and abilities as individuals since it was through the CBA that they agreed to give up rights afforded to all Americans (such as the ability to petition in court against the NFL) through the CBA. By locking out the players, they have decided to pursue other avenues to reach settlement as the owners exercised their ability to reopen the deal and then declared an impasse allowing them to impose their current offer on the players. The right to collectively bargain is not one laid out in specific language in the constitution. However, individual rights such as those to petition the courts and the right to free association which gathering together to form a workers' union is based upon are constitutional rights. The mere act of the NFLPA decertifying itself as a bargaining agent with the NFL does not abridge the rights of an individual player to take constitutional actions like petition the courts(in fact it increases those) nor does it abridge the right of individuals to freely associate or take legal actions as a trade union. In fact, by decertifying itself, my sense is that the real beneficiaries might well be the draftees if they choose to sue the NFL for abridging the rights of individuals to sign personal services contracts with NFL teams. In other professional sports individual sign contracts with teams not only once they become adults but actually sign contracts at the age of 16 with their parents permission. The NFL has hidden behind the fig leaf of agreement with the NFLPA to bar teams from signing contracts not only with kids with their parents consent but in fact bars adults from signing legal contracts until their age group turns 21. It interests me that clearly the NFLPA is talking with young likely draftees such as Von Miller as it strikes me that if one of these individuals filed suit against the NFL after the draft that without the figleaf of the NFLPA this individual would win this lawsuit against the owners for colluding with each other to force him to sign only with the team which drafted him. All other Americans get to assess the country and all the potential employers who are competing with each other in our free market. Instead, the reality is that if the athlete wants to play pro football at the highest level he can he is forced to sign with one and only one team without regard to who bids highest or where he wants to live. This abridgement of the fundamental rights of the individual might fly in Cuba where Fidel tells you where to live but is simply un-American. My guess is the courts do not stand up for the individual when their is a certified union negotiating the CBA, but after the decert we will see.

Yes, a good article for those whose primary interest is the draft. However, if one's primary interest is the Bills and them winning in either the short term or the long term then the hope has to be they do not fill their definite need at QB until later in the draft. A decision to go QB in the early picks is a decision not to use the early draft resource to reinforce a D which is likely two players (an OLB and a DE) away from adequacy. A first round drafted QB would not only be under tremendous pressure to produce immediately (as the conventional wisdom is falsely in reality for a 1st round pick) from Sully, the whiners at GR and a small but noisy part of the fan base, but would have to do so with basically the same inadequate D we have now, Even worse, the OL is a player and a half away from adequacy (an RT, a swing guy to fill in adequately when the expected nicks happen to the starters. The highly drafted QB will not only likely be rushed to start before he is ready as we have continually done this past decade, but he probably will not even survive behind this OL which simply demands a smart vet to read the Ds, escape the rush when needed, and dump the ball when needed. it seems to me that any QB drafted before the 4th round simply costs the Bills a draft pick which could have been used to help the team build a winner and takes up cap room when the players eventually sign. Yes, the Bills need a franchise QB cause it ain't Fitzpatick but this player is going to be had from some other team that ran a good QB out of town as was done most recently with Brees and historically has included HOF players like Young and Favre. Even so-so QBs like Brad Johnson or Dilfer are capable of QBing sound teams to an SB win, the best bet for the Bills at this point is to worry about building a sound team rather than wasting resources at some shot in the dark young big resource eating QB.

The damage done by Levy/Jauron simply pales in comparison to the damage done by Mr. Ralph himself. 1. In our decade plus of failing to make the playoffs what % would you blame on Levy/Jauron? Like it or not the majority of the teams record of failure was racked up before the Levy/Jauron reign of error. 2. If you want to look at only the future by arbitrarily simply ignoring the majority of the record of failure, who besides Levy would have chosen to work for Mr. Ralph after his debacle relationships firing Polian, having such a toxic relationship with Butler he screwed us and firing TD as well. As Shanahan and Cowart demonstrated in the last go round no one would use Mr. Ralph as more than an amusing foil and he is so incompetent as an owner he could not even find a GM post Levy. 3. If Levy Jauron were such a disaster who hired them and does not this person deserve huge blame. To simply fault Levy/jauron for this situation and ignore Mr. Ralph's lead role is simply not correct.

However, when you are talking about the end of pro football, we (society) is not looking for "proof" of what explains his behavioral change, but demanding proof at a sufficient level to take approaching $10 million annually from a bunch of people who will be reluctant to give it up. Even with mounting evidence there is still not going to be flat-out or sufficient "proof" of why any single person succumbed and an ample fig leaf will remain for quite a while to allow he old Golden Rule to be applied, "he who has the most gold rules". We are talking about a western culture which has its roots in the Emperor of Rome enslaving people and forcing them to fight to the death in the forum in Rome and for the oppressed masses to be entertained by it. We fortunately have progressed a bit from then, but not so far that the modern western culture though it does not engage generally in gladiator death matches, we sure revel in movies where Russell Crowe depicts that life. Today, we revel in gladiators not killing each other overtly and in the gladiators in the NFL being hugely compensated rather than enslaved. However, this difference in how we are really doing the same thing should prove sufficient for quite a while to keep the NFL going as the masses are happy to eat their cake and enjoy the spectacle.

Au contraire. The NFL draft is unique amongst these other drafts in that only it not only restricts individuals above the age of majority and in fact adults from being able to work in their chosen profession until the age 21. MLB and the NHL make a speculative arrangement and sign youngsters to minor league contracts and also maintain expensive minor league systems through contracts and ownership. The NBA enjoys much the same taxpayer subsidy of having state schools amongst others pay to train their workers, but again the NFL is unique in that at least in the NBA their are often utilized mechanisms where a talented individual can sell his services to the highest bidder once he becomes an adult, This is part of the reason why I find it amusing when folks rail against the NFLPA that it has no case in claiming the NFL restricts individual market rights because actually it is the college players who have a far better case to be made that un-American practices which restrain the rights of commerce of individuals exist. In fact it is the NFLPA which through its PARTNERSHIP with the team owners restricts the rights of individuals to sell their services. If one is going to try to base their argument on principles this is the biggest principle being abridged here. Amusingly the NFL finds itself hoist on its own petard because though they gained the short-term benefit of acting like welfare queens profiting off of colleges paying for their training of workers, they now are paying the price of being outflanked by the talented tenth of adult players who handed them their head with the last two CBAs and I have not heard of any logical reason why there will not be the same result in this current dispute. I refer you to the arguments made above (I think by ...Contenders) which lays out the case why the NFL is simply not like the auto, steel or industries but really is a case unto itself. I made my arguments mostly not because they are proof in and of themselves but actually to tease out the perspective that trying to use other examples of how industries operate with unions is actually foolhardy as this is such a unique case and business. One of the major departures from other examples is that in this entertainment business the mid 80s made the players partners with the owners when they forced agreement to a CBA with the decert threat (the owners realized that they simply could not operate without the players partnering with them to perform actions such as restraining young players through the salary cap(, In the current CBA, the players arguably became majority owners by dictating that they would receive over 60% of the total revenues. Yes it looks familiar in that it demonstrates that the NFL/NFLPA partnership is a wholly different beast from the deals which gpvern other businesses. Auto workers do not operate in partnership with team owners the way the NFLPA does to restrict adults from being able to sign contracts. This is why decert has so terrified owners as it would deny them a partner and force them to actually compete for individual player services in a good ol American way. The NFL agreed to a partnership framewoek but negotiated an opt out and then exercised it claiming that the books drove them to do this. They then have refused to share the books with their partners in this deal. I also agree the players are not advocating giving up on the draft. In fact all they are advocating is maintain the current deal as agreed to (but the owners opted out as they were allowed to do). This is why the view which roots for the players to win the case against the lockout is correct for those who want football to return as it currently was. It is the owners who have overturned the apple cart and the players are on record saying they would simply like things to continue on. In addition, as amused as I would be to simply see the players deal out the owners as their are tons of sources of capital out there and the Packers demonstrate that a league could manage and operate without individual team owners, I do not think the players even want to get rid of the team owners. Instead, the move they seem to be headed toward is one where they weaken the owners by creating a new league (which I dubbed the (NewFL) which gives the NFLPA of adding members and increasind salaries as old leagues from the successful AFL to the unsuccessful USFL have done.

Thanks for the links to actual primary sources for the issues in dispute rather than simply supplying the fact-free opinions which are totally legit on a bulletin board but really have little to do with reality. It does amuse me when some seem to claim that the practices of the NFL and the NFLPA are simply the same as any employer/employee negotiation and in these cases no boss has any duty to reveal economic data about their business. I think your primary information documents actually make it relatively clear that: 1. The NFL is like any normal business argument falls apart as an example based on what he NFL actually does. Think of it this way for folks who are trapped in the "what would a normal business do" the NFL through the lockout and most of all the draft in no way operates like a normal business. Lets say that in college you got a degree in computer science and decided to make that your career. Under normal business practices you might send your resume to Microsoft if you wanted to live in Oregon, to IBM if you wanted to live in Armonk, NY or to Hewlett-Packard of you wanted to live in Silicon Valley. However, lets instead think if these competing companies instead operated like the NFL. These three companies )or choose steel manufacture, pharmaceuticals or virtually any market sector you want) instead all get together and hold a draft and inform you that if you want to do computer stuff you will have to work for and only work for whichever company (IBM, Microsoft, or Hewlett drafted you. Sure computers (steel, pharma or whatever) industries are different than football so maybe to allow the league to exist you want to allow a draft even though it forces basic decisions on employees like where to live. However, the courts in their role in our society of protecting the individual has ruled that the un-American restraint of individual trade inherent in a draft is allowable as long as the individual players are allowed to designate a bargaining agent to negotiate rules with the NFL. Without the fig leaf of the NFLPA providing a fig leaf to allow the teams to simply assign players where they will play this seems quite clearly to be a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. In fact even with the collusion of the NFLPA the partnership between the team owners and the union seems to be likely to agree to some rookie salary cap which unilaterally takes away the ability for adults to negotiate with whatever team will give them the best deal. For those who refuse to view the world this way this simply ask yourself why has the decert threat proved to be such a potent tactic for the players that after the NFL simply kick the butts of the old AFL-CIO types who managed the NFLPA in the mid -80s lockout that the threat to decertify caused the owners to run kicking and screaming to sign the CBA which in essence made the players partners with the team owners and then in the last CBA allowed Gene Upshaw to publicly dictate that the salary cap would be calculated based on total revenues and that the players share would have to start with a 6. The team owners simply NEED the players to be their partners if in our America they are going to be allowed to dictate to the individual who there employer will be. The pieces you lay out show fairly clearly to me that as long as the NFLPA sticks to their guns and as long as they get a judge like Doty who comes down in favor of individual rights the NFL is gonna get killed on this one.

Remembering the past is an important thing and in that light lets not forget the first miscue in the ongoing list of searching for the QB of the future which RJ is a part of... Mr. Ralph's handshake deal with Jimbo to reward him in his next FA contract which never happened. Mr. Ralph made a stupid football judgment that Jimbo had something left in the tank through his signing another contract. Even this outsider could see Jimbo was done the year before Mr. Ralph's poor judgment. While the owners hands are crystal clear as they were on the handshake deal only he could make, many of the future decisions Mr. Ralph was almost certainly instrumental in them as they involved huge outlays of cash (or if he was not involved his role was merely silly neglect rather than proactive error).

No, they could not because the courts will protect individual rights. Under the CBA with the NFLPA the league abridges the rights of individuals by holding a draft which forces this individual not to sell his services to the highest bidder (aka the good ol capitalist American way) but instead assigns the rights for this individual to one and only one team. Our courts have already ruled that even in a case like MLB which has much clearer and broader anti-trust exemption than the NFL that it is illegal to restrict an individual to bargain with only one employer. Our system does recognize though that it would be pretty difficult if not impossible to run a sports league which relied solely on the free market to allocate talent. Thus it allows a league to work with a certified bargaining agent of a majority of players to in fact collude against individual rights and allocate an individual without regard to where that individual wants to live to one team under the conditions that: 1. The bargaining agent reaches agreement with the league on a compensation plan which rewards all players compensation. 2. Individuals are granted free agency and a right to test the market at some point near the beginning of their career. When the union decertfied it denied the owners of the fig leaf of abridging individual rights to enter into contracts of their choosing and individual players such as Brady et al sued. Particularly given legal precedent such as the recent Judge Doty finding against the NFL and history such as Mavin Miller and the MLBPA beating the reserve clause when the MLB had even stronger anti-trust protection the NFL would likely lose. Even more clear, Carl Eller on behalf of NFL vets whose pensions, health care and other compensation are actually determined by CBAs within which they do not even have a vote and on behalf of college players who are not even voting members of the NFLPA yet, the owners are subjecting these individuals to various restriction where they now not only have no vote but the NFLPA fig leaf is not there without certification. The players have a good case and the collegians have a great one if the league now unilaterally decides to abridge the rights of individuals by forcing individuals to bargain with only one team, unilaterally sets the salary cap, and only allows FA until 6 years or so. To me not only is there really no question of illegal collusion and anti-free market exploitation if the NFLPA decertifies but even if the league if the NFLPA is a certified bargaining agent it strikes me as wrong under the current system that the NFL and NFLPA actually are allowed to conspire to stop 18-21 year old adults from signing contracts (which is unlike all other professional sports leagues and even worse than worse taxpayers pay a massive subsidy to the NFL to train potential players at taxpayer financed colleges. You would be simply wrong if you claimed without the NFLPA that the NFL could simply set any employment stance it wanted.

A great cut in how one should judge players which admits to far more nuance in selection that is realistic. However, some fairly odd and questionable individual judgments. I would love it if a lot of folks used this as a common template for judging as the best way to get good information would be to see a lot of people using a more refined template.

You might want to give Curling a try before you sign yourself onto the Olympic team, Its bit more difficult physically than you would guess just from looking, Mentally it is simply a bear in that just like any competition against other human beans it gets pretty gnarly performing well when your teammates are depending on you and a whole crowd is watching. Add to that I have played the game several times and seen it a zillion times and I still do not understand the rules and scoring and it really is quite impressive to see anyone be consistently good at it. Like figure skating, I sometimes think it would be more entertaining to watch if all the competitors wore gas tanks merely so they might explode when they fall, but I say this only to indicate its a whole different world to compete in than to watch. If folks are interested and in Buffalom the Niagara Falls Curling Club is just about to take up its ice for the spring/summer. However, the season begins in mid-fall and NFCC has an introductory session each year and open times where one can rent a sheet to throw some rocks. The website is > http://www.niagarafallscurling.ca/ < and its only about 20 minutes from the Peace Bridge which connect Buffalo to Ontario,

If this happened, I would then hope a team like Cincy which has a high pick and is thinking QB might then be willing to switch with us in exchange for the extra picks to get Gabbert.

We got a third rounder back in the day when these compensatory picks were first day choices of in essence for Friggin Lonnie Johnson. The Bills are still way ahead in terms of the scales of justice on this one.