zonabb

Well best wishes to him for certain However, live in the public eye and your life, just like the athletes you cover, is fair game both professionally and personally. when reporters stop using anonymous sources to get info on health, personal issues, and other off the field issues, their lives are fair game as well in this digital age. I'm not saying its right or wrong, I'm saying it's reality.

Agreed! A committed owner with good management can do well in any small NFL market because the NFL brand is such a huge advantage, not to mention league committed to revenue sharing that helps the small markets. I for one think the small market moniker doesn't fit bflo due to a haphazard definition of geography by the league. Someday I'll make that argument here with some good analysis.

Interesting... But what is the time period of the analysis? If he time period is the history of the NFL i wouldn't necessarily have statistical significance for current trends, say the last 5 or 10 years. If it is 5 or 10 years, it's pretty telling. However, I could get a high r squared too with a little work!!!!!!

First, stay away from Fisher Court. You're paying inflated home prices with few amenities to show for it. The homes prices there are artificially inflated due to poor soil conditions and the need for expensive basement remedies to ensure the homes stand up. Also, a high level of engineering was required to get the project permitted due to floodplain and other obstacles. Too much of the home prices is not reflected in the structure. There was a model there for abotu 2 years or more that no one would touch due to the high price and nothing to show for it. Run, don't walk, away from that place. That doesn't even take into account that its adjacent to the NYS thruway and the high levels of traffic and air pollution to the a toll barrier a few hundred yards away. During peak traffic hours, traffic is backed-up andf basically on some Fisher Court backyards! Oh, one airport runway is a few hundred yards away too. PM me if you want. I'm not a realtor but have extensive background and conducted research on the region's housing market and specific neighborhoods.

Where did you read it, got a link. I'm an unapologetic RW basher for the same reasons as most others... 50 years of futility and a failure to support this team's future here after he's gone. But if he's supporting the small markets and fighting for him, I'll applaud that effort.

A 50 year track record is enough of a sample to not need to wait. We can accurately predict what RW has ordered his underlings to do without having to wait. The homers and RW apologists are forever optimistic (PTR etc) because they're blind and don't want to accept reality. RW is the ultimate illusionist... Constantly doing the bare minimum to keep people interested while pocketing his $25-$30 million in profit yearly on a team he bought for $25k. He's made hundreds, yes hundreds, of millions by being lucky attached to a brand. That brand is the NFL. Anyone who says this guy is a savor of we should be happy with having a team is lost. (0 years of losing and futility when we should have had a winner. The guy doesn't recognize that winning is will return more profit that his mediocrity. I'll admit I'm hopIng for new owner or a relocation because this pathetic owner isnt worth the taxes I pay as an Erie county resident. Im a diehard fan but this ahole has the sweetest deal going... Have the hardworking taxpayers build him a stadium and operate And maintain it and have the league and the fans make him a future. I ended my years as a season ticket holder 2 seasons ago. I refuse to support an owner who: 1) takes my tax dollars as profit 2) who took my season ticket money ad refused to spend it to build a team while simultaneously crying poor at the sAme time he is among the most profitable teams in the league 3) after 50 years and millions of dollars in taxpayer support refuses to ensure this te remains here. He's the worst owner in the NFL bar none. And I andany of my friends refuse to support him anymore. Die And sell to the highest bidder with no certainty of stAying here is not fan or region friendly and I'm done supporting it. Anyone who supports it out of fear of them leaving if you dont is only ensuring his profit while failing to recognize this team is going to be relocated if RW doesnt ensure it won't be. So youre wasting your money, the departure is inevitable.

My understanding is that a SJFC alum with money wanted to donate it for a new track. So the college, out of fear of making potential donors made, agreed to the project. I'm sure if comes with a nifty plaque or name dedication for the donor, kind of like Wilson's name used for I think the Education Dept. Apparently SJFC wanted the money to be used, call this crazy, to support its educational goals. So rather than say no thanks, we're not noted track and field powerhouse, they took it and did this. And the Toronto suburb idea... don't discount it. If they don't like just one field, they won't stay. If you can't conduct practices the way you want, you leave.

Who cares how two parties in a negotiation proceed so long as they agree to the terms? And don't say "many" Americans are liberatarian as a means to lead into you argument and flailingly attempt to justify it. The majority of americans aren't libertarians nor believe in it. Many are, but in a country of 320 million, many is relative and makes that ideology a minority and even fringe.

One glaring issue..... The NYC and Bay area teams are in the bottom four due to allegiance for each team in the region but when taken in combination the NFL penetration in those markets put them near the top, which shows why the NFL wants to be in LA

I can't stand Schopp, he's an angry person who is over-emotional when it comes to things, and also too calculated and cautious with his words, making sure always to correct himself for making any statement that someone might call him out on. But I rarely listen, mainly because of him. But I was subjected to his act today when in a waiting room and he was totally going out of his way to act clueless as a means to show his distain for the team and the sport. This is a guy who NEVER gets on the air about something he's passionate about without an opinion (and he's always right, everyone is wrong) and stand by it. So his design feigned ignorance today is intentional as means to distance himself from something he hates. I listen to that station at other time but I refuse to turn it on between 3-6. He can have his SJF degree (I guess he didn't realize Syracuse has one of the best journalism schools) in communications and his bully pulpit, he's still a working in a dying media town and still the most disliked personality on that channel. Ask everyone who listens, they agree! Stop listening!

You're definition of successful leaves the cheating question open as to the impact of cheating. Cheating to get through results in what is expected, under-prepared employees who, although gaining professional experience, lack a lot of what truly successful employees have... dedication, discipline and self-esteem. As someone who currently teaches in a college as a PhD candidate, I've caught college football players cheating. I know kids cheat, it's inevitable in large classrooms. But making a misleading statement that EVERYONE cheats is only done to make yourself feel better and justify your own actions. "hey, all the cool kids are doing it." Most kids don't. And the best students are the truly successful, both academically and professionally. If getting the degree is all that matters and that's your definition of success, you're missing the point. But congrats anyway. Like I tell students and has been the topic of discussions with other instructors and professors... the real world is the ultimate equilibrium. You can't fake it and get by with excuses and lack of discpline and ignorance. So go ahead and cheat, what you get in the real world is a direct response to the easy way out attitude.

Take it from someone in the process, you've not come close to the effort required for a doctoral dissertation! Anyway, good job and info.

As someone who thinks management's leadership, charisma and attitude determine success as much as any other single factor, I can say that if I were a 25 year old millionaire with RW as my own, I wouldn't have too much passion for the game. MOst of these owns, RWS included, treat the players in the NFL like a commodity and its hard to respect an owner who is never around, can't walk into the lockerroom and rally the team with a speech (imagine that scene), and continually makes horrible decisions. Imagine the whispers that must permeate that lockerroom about the owner. He's probably seen as everyone's senile grandfather, not some well-respected, great leader and owner. A great owner/CEO/leader is exactly what you see in Pegula. Someone who is passionate and committed but also recognizes that he's not the best at every job in the company and he needs the best people, which he can then rally and leader and who will follow. I think of Richard Branson when I think of Pegula. They have a lot of similarities, one of the most important being vision. They both have ideas and the find the best people to implement them. They are not necessarily the smartest guys, but they have passion and excellent leadership skills. Want proof on Branson's business skills? Watch this YouTube video, particularly the parts about what he looks for in a leader, how you should treat employees, and amazingly, his admitted lack of understanding between "gross" and "net" (around the 8:00 minute mark). The guy took a college record order business and turned it into billions through shear leadership and vision. This team doesn't need to move, I'll say it over and over. It needs a great owner and leader who recognizes the passion in this town. This town stil comes out in droves for a horrible team and fills that place. Imagine a Pegula-like owner who brought back the alumni, treated the fans as fans and not as some distant customer, and who through speaking we coudl tell he was honestly passionate and committed to winning? You could double the ticket prices and you couldn't get a ticket. That team is a brand of a worldwide enterprise with as much visibility as any product in the world. We have one of only 32 of these products and we love it and want the positive recognition that comes with being lucky enough to have it. An owner who recognizes that, recognizes that winning will draw the fans from Rochester and Toronto, and recognizes that winning, not population size and regional economics, determine the viability of a team, can make it go here. This team will never win with Wilson, partly due to his age but mainly because the sample size (its history) says so. The guy is out of touch, stubborn (start doing what you can to keep the team here you ingrate), short-sighted and meddling. All the worst traits of a leaders/owner/CEO.

Obviously if you have enough time to respond, wasting time isn't an issue for you. Jeez

You're all missing the point, and by a wide margin. The point is not how many SBs Parcells QBs won, it's about a criteria to avoid busts and minimize the risk associated with drafting QBs. If you take his criteria and go back and look at good and great QBs, his criteria can usually be found. Go look at the busts and you'll find some issues lacking in his criteria. The draft is about risk assessment and this criteria is one tool in the box. And I would bet, without double checking, that Kelly, Collins, and Manning meet the criteria.

Siding with either group is a hard pill to swallow but I can't in any way, shape or form side with the owners. Greedy, selfish and arrogant. I wish the govt would step in and stop allowing the NFL to have special rules for how it deals with players that most other business don't. They get to act like one league but then owners in big markets whine about helping small markets. You can't have it both ways. And save your "draped in the flag" FoxNews rhetoric about how this is American and freedoma and liberty shall prevail and business should have no regulations. That's fine if you believe that but as soon as you take a nickel or taxpayer dollars to help finance anything you should prove the need. Open your books Jerry Jones and show the taxpayers of Dallas why you "needed" $300M in PUBLIC tax dollars to help with your stadium financing? What other bank doesn't require financial statements be provided when seeking loans or breaks? None. So why is the NFl exempt when they're taking our money.... that include RW. The bottomline is, Jones and the other highly debted teams WANT, not need, WANT, more profit because they're so in debt from stadium financing. Making it worse, they build new stadiums on taxpayer dollars to sell highly priced suites to businesses who right them off as expenses on their taxes and the government loses out there as well. Any suggestion that the owners are the ones gambling and taking the risk and therefore should be rewarded as such is BS. Risk is spending every last nickel YOU have to build a stadium. Risk is pushing all YOUR chips to the center and building something from scratch. Risk is not using taxpayer dollars to increase your profit because you don't want to spend your own money to support your own business. What the NFL is engaged in is corporate welfare. It's socialized debt for privatized profit. But its America and private business is allowed to do that in the name of freedom, liberty and the flag but any redistribution of money to individuals is socialism. What's next, the Republican National Committee charging for the rights to broadcast its presidential nomination debates as a means to get the party out of campaign debt. That would never happen, the RNC is the fiscal powerhouse in this country, they don't run into debt, in fact, they know all the ways to stay out of debt and make profit. And because they're such principled individuals, they'd pay off their own debt, right? And those seeking office would want to get their message out to people by using network television as a means to freely broadcast to the most people possible because it's their obligation to explain to us why they should be elected and the onus and incentive is on them to tell us, not the obligation of us to pay them to tell us though our cable bills. Stupid. This country is dumber by the day.

As someone who had done a lo of reading on the Wonderlic, my opinion, and that of people in football, is that the Wonderlic scores for RBs is probably has the least relevancy to any position. RB is about talent and vision and reaction. A lot of very good RBs have poor Wonderlics. I'm not saying Spiller is smart, I'm saying its not very relevant. Sure, he needs to learn some things and get better and realize he's not going to outrun everyone, but that's part of the jump to the NFL. Chris Johnson has a 10 on his first try but miraculously had a 25 on his second (like JP Losman, you can coach them to memorize and them retake the test but the initial score is always more in line with reality). His pre-draft scouting reports questioned his work in the classroom so the 10 seems to back that up. Does Chris Johnson suck? Nope. By the way, 20 is considered average intelligence. Adrian Peterson got a 16, well below average as well. Does he suck? Don't cherry pick stupid stats and reports to attempt to make a point unless you can adequately explain them and futher back them up. Nothing worse than saying "CJ got a 10, no wonder he sucks" and then not follow it with any proof that the 10 has specific meaning for RBs. It's even particularly laughable when simple comparisons using Wonderlic scores shows that it's not all that relevant considering his peers. FAIL

"A pack fan considers lambeau the best and dumps on Minneapolis? Shocking." I'll back him up there, that place sucks. The cramped concourses make the Ralph look like a tarmac. The downtown location on the rail is nice but there's not much going on down in that area. The Pats have an amazing stadium. The upper concourses are wide and easily navigated. Entry into the stadium is 5 minutes for a line that take 20-30 at the Ralph. And you can get a Sam Adams draft there for less than a crappy Buttwiper at the Ralph. It wasn't until I went to NE that I truly understood the push for new stadiums. I will say though that my upper deck seat seems way higher and further from the field than the highest seat at the Raplh. As a side note, I saw something today about a new staidum for Atlanta. This league is a joke really. How old is that place, less than 15 or 20 years? It's a big city league and if they don't figure a way out to ensure the small markets can survive, Buffalo, KC, Cleveland, Jacksonville, and some of these other declining markets are dead. Jerry Jones and his anti-revenue sharing don't understand that what makes the league popular and work is the balance. If it turns into the DAL, NY, DC, ATL, CHI, and LA teams versus everyone else, it'll become baseball.

Cool. Now what's the name of the song playing in the background... I can hear the song but can't remember the name. GOod tune. EDIT: Of course, as soon as I posted this is came to me... M.I.A. Paper Airplanes

I've posted on this many times in other threads over the years because I believe smart people make smart, rational choices based on some formula and without reading the article but this thread, it seems to mimic Parcell's requirements.... which generally are based on games started, graduation, and wins. Bottomline is, you have to take risk assessment into the concept of the draft and determine how much risk you're willing to take. When it comes to QBs, the reason there seems to be such a high risk is because teams gamble more on the position and draft them higher than data and research would support based on the value of the position and not the position they're picked. As with any model, which this is, it's used as a predictive tool and although some guys have some of the stats to meet the model and smoe don't, generally, it works well in that is has more predictive power than looking at the atheletic measurables alone. To the person who said wonderlic is qualitative, you're wrong. Wonderlic is a measurement of some sort of intelligence, which is a quantitative measure. Opinions are qualitative data. IQ is quantitative. Wonderlic being a proxy measurement for IQ, it's therefore quantitative. I replied to a thread a couple weeks ago that stated if you look up the reported Wonderlics of Super Bowl winning QBs they all exceed I think its a 22 with the exception of Bradshaw and that was before last night. Rodgers exceeded it too. So my point is that although a high Wonderlic is not a guarantee you have a Super Bowl winning QB, one less than 22 is a guarantee YOU DON'T. So my point is, if I'm drafting a QB, I want a guy with the 27 starts, the wins, the degree and the Wonderlic over 22 because it's a better indicator (because of the large sample size, ie, the number of years in college competing at a high level and then graduating) than you have with someone like Newton. So when it comes down to what will be 2+ months of discussin Newton, he doesn't fit the Parcells model (you don't count the Blinn games because it was a juco) right off the bat because he lacks the starts, the wins and the degrees. The Wonderlic will be telling. Throw in character issues and what I think is a problem with his overbearing father in terms of the potential lack of decision-making ability given what is an adult and you have the recipe for disaster. So at #3, are all those questions worth the gamble? If I'm the Bills, I say no way and pass on the guy.

You need to understand the concept of projection. Projecting a run-first, throw-second QB with one starting season in the SEC, albeit with a national title, is not easy. Does he have a good arm? Yes. Does he makes some good throws? Yes? Can he scramble? Yes. Can he stand in and read a defense? No sure. Is he smart enough to handle to position at the NFL level? Not sure. Can he scramble out of trouble at will in the NFL when his first read isn't open and he doesn't have the patience to read his other options? No way, the linebackers are too fast. The bottomline is, you can't fall in love with a one-year wonder with questionable maturity and a very small sample of high level college games. How many other one year wonders were drafted to high and bombed? Too many to count I would offer. I can't comment on Gabbert. I haven't seen him play but from what I've read, he's played in a pro-style offense (vs. Newton playing in the spread) and has done very well with it from both the mental and physical sides. And he has a larger sample of games played to judge on. The larger the sample, the closer you get to being able to project who he is. The smaller the sample, the more likely you are to over or under-estimate a player when their real abilities might be somewhere between the extremes. I've said it before here and continue to.... I like Parcells criteria for drafting QBs (based on wins, games, played and graduation) as the starting point. Add in Wonderlic scores and you're in better position to make a good pick with a QB. There is a distinct traits with all SB winning QBs who I have been able to locate Wonderlic scores for, with the exception of one guy... none had scores, if I can recall correctly (have it written down somewhere), less than 22 or so, other than Bradshaw. Basically, every SB winner since 1990 has a score that higher or higher. And my point is, although you might get to the playoffs with some supreme physical talent, the stats seem to indicate that winning one requires some higher intelligence. Proof: this year's SB QBs have a 35 (Rodgers) and a 25 (Roethlisberger). Some recent winners, in addition to Roethlisberger, as well Brady 33 P. Manning 28 E. Manning 39 Brees 28 However, Ryan Leaf had a 27, which is why I said that other factors matter, like Parcells criteria. Leaf bucked Parcells criteria becaus ehe didn't finish college or start and win enough games. The problem with the QB in the NFL is that there is such a premium on the position that it leads to over-reaction and poor decision making on the parts of teams. So teams are willing to disregard what non-emotional, quantitative analysis says and gamble and it fails more often than not. Between 2000 and 2010 29 QBs were taken in the NFL. We can call these guys unquestioned busts (1 in 3) through 2007(not enough playing time): McNown Carr Harrington Ramsey Boller Losman Smith Leinart Quinn Some were serviceable but ultimately didn't/haven't win/won titles or are teetering on bust status Pennington Vick Palmer Leftwich Grossman Rivers Campbell Young Cutler Rodgers And these are your title winners Roethlisberger E. Manning If Rodgers wins, that's a SB-winning QB drafted in the first round in 3 of the last 11 drafts. If not, even worse, only 2. So what this long winded post means is... it's a gamble. Big time. And you have to minimize the risk and not reach in the first round because as history has shown most QBs are drafted too highly. Take the best lineman and move on!

That's without a doubt the most irrelevant, horribly elementary use of statistics to make a point I think I've seen in sports. Wow, stick to X's and O's and away from math and economics TG. Leave that to the people who understand statistical methods and things like correlation better than you obviously do. There are so many flaws in the logic I won't waste our time with it.

Don't insult us with a price decrease. Put a good product in the field and the games sell out, it's that simple. Decreasing prices would indicate they don't get it and are blaming the economy and the region for poor attendance when the attendance is a factor of the product. The last thing we need with an uncertain future given the frail condition of the owners is to unnecessarily provide a new owner more leverage to move the team. A smart business person keeps ticket prices the same. It keeps the fans happy. And from a business standpoint, it doesn't have harm to the value of the team. A reduction in prices would let a new owner say "hey, you can't sell out and dropped ticket prices so I think this region sucks and I'll offer less than the team is worth." Any reduction in ticket prices most certainly costs RW's family on the sale price. I have argued on this board to increase the prices. Look at the Sabres as the only model you need. The key assumption is the team has to be competitive. So long as that's the case, people will pay whatever it costs to go.

The first game I saw him play was the championship game. He was great but that personal foul immediately made my brain say "Albert Haynesworth." This statements seems to indicate he's a little immature, like Haynesworth, and that has to be a read flag for anyone. Does or should it drop him, I don't know but I know it had to be considered. Miscreants, malcontents and idiots who think they're bigger than the team don't always work out.

Percentages are misleading and used when intentionally trying to prove a point i.e. cherry pick one stat to base an entire argument on. The beat way to make this argument using this stat would be to use the number of passes total per qb then break out the drops pet attempt for the qb an drops per target for wr. Percent alone tells nothing. It's a fool's stat.