Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

I think there's alot new in this! This article also explains how both the Bill's and NFL both signed off on this agreement that states we as fan's can seek injunctive relief. So If Bon Jovi tries to buy the Bill's and states, "No I'm not going to buy the team and ever move it" All you need is some fan to go to court and get an injunction that would forbid the NFL owners from even voting on approving the sale to him. Could a Bon Jovi win in court, sure but the amount of time required on a court battle would likely convince owners to not even consider that bid and look much harder for a local group or a group that is committed to Buffalo. I think this may be the reason guys like Kelly, Thomas for years have been all happy and saying the Bill's aren't going anywhere. For all the people who were continuously bashing RW for not selling the team to a local group while alive, this was his way of assuring the team does stay in western NY for a long time!

Agreed, But if there were instructions from RW that the trust is to sell to a Buffalo based group at any cost, then that is what she is legally required to do and that would be making a good deal for the trust per its instructions, Based on everything stated publicly in past few years by people like Kelly, Thurman, etc, about not to worry, I'm would not be at all surprised if there is not some type of instructions along those lines to keep the team here or some other type of poison pill created by RW that would make moving the team extremely difficult to do MW is not necessarily required ot take the best deal for the trust, but she is required to follow the request of the trust.

Conversly if the trust specified it should be donated to a charity or sold at at any cost to a group pledged to keep the team in Buffalo. the other owners owuld have a hard time going against that. They could keep declining ownership, but in doing so, that would keep the team here longer since no new owner. Plus someone would get fed up and sue the other NFL owners and win. Look at how many times the NFL had told Al Davis No, he does it anyway and wins in court. I think many sports leagues have constitutions wit hmany illegal practices, but get away with it as the yall agree to it, until someone sues.

Yes but there's a big difference here. SJ is the Bill's best receiver only becasue they don't all that many good receiveres. They drafted Woods last year who could become better in a year or two, today not yet. Replacing Stevie with Watkins or Evens is a step up, maybe not this season yet, but give it a year or two at most and the Bill's are ahead of the curve. On top of that , you have all the off field antics wit hSJ. Alot was being written late last year about Stevie not being a Doug M kind of guy. So if Trading Stevie and the 9th to move up to 5 or 4, maybe even throw in a 3rd or 4th, I'd make that move. I wouldn't want to give up draft picks to move up, but would make that move

So how do you have a Chicago at Detroit game on CBS? Did the Bears jump to the AFC and not tell anyone?? Well that explains why no Buffalo Turkey day game, everyone said had to be either Miami or Buffalo. Guess the NFL changed the rules this year. Will be interesting to hear the explanation on thta one, though mosdt people acorss the county will be happier with Bears-Lions I wonder if it has something to do with CBS now getting the Thursday night games?

Two things keep me from dumping cable/satelite, sports and the DVR. Kind of funny you see these articels all the time about dumping cable, but they always make little mention of the sports part of it. Hard to get an alternative to that.

That was the problem in Cal with the Raiders. Yes they signed a contract, but the contract was argued to be illegal. A federal court ruled in favor of the Raiders, but Cal apparently has very strict state labor laws and the argument was this contact broke state laws.Likely NY has some pretty strict state laws too. If they have to rely on State laws, likely cheerleaders for teams like the Falcons, Titans, and Saints are out of luck. According to the article in the case of the Raiders, they were considered employees, not contractors. That was also the jist of the article, this could likely mean the end of cheerleaders for the NFL.

For the most part, your orneryness was well directed.

Just finished reading an article in ESPN The Magazine about the start of this lawsuit by a Raiders cheerleader. After reading the article, I'm more supportive and I think most others would be. I believe they get paid something like around $1800 for the season. But they don't get paid until after the season is over. They have to weigh in every week or so, if they are over weight, think by more than a couple of pounds, they are fined. To those comparing to Fireman Ed, he doesn't have any weight limts BTW thank god! There were fines for almost everything, missing a reahesal, etc. One girl at an approved Raiders autograph session was signing here name with a sharpie that leaked on her top. She then had to go buy a new one out of her pocket at $100. It said the girls often are working at game basically owing more in fines than they are being paid. Game day BTW was a nine hour gig I belive it stated. There were many extra events they were requiredto be at for crazy amounts of time. If I recall the article stated they were working for the equivelant of a little over $2 an hour which was the crux of the lawsuit, as that's illegal.

Well if you graded every team on that same scale, almost everyone would be terrible. Except maybe NE, Indy, and Green Bay. And in NE's case was more luck in finding Brady in the 6th. I think QB is the worst position to grade a front office by as there's not nearly enough QB's to go around so everyone takes huge gambles there, and maybe 15% turn out to be true franchise QB's, and of those 15% most were dumb luck, or you had the 1st/2nd overall pick. So grade him on that if you want, but understand that it's about 90% luck if you find one.

I think his response was just realistic and brutally honest. The amount of posts on this board or any board who imply they no better than professionals is amazing. So his response to this thread was appropriate IMO. Two of the examples the OP gave was Whitner and Maybin, both selected in the Marv Levy and Russ Brandon GM era. In both cases, neither of them were traditional GM's in how they selected players etc. I recall ML specifically stating how he was building consensus and draft picks were a product of that. No inside information, pure speculation, but I really don't think RB even really wanted to be the GM and left to others to decide on the draft picks taken. He never claimed to be making those decisions either from what I recall. So if I'm not going to be making the picks myself, whom better to lean on than who does the HC want and unless based on a clear reason to go in another direction, would defer to him. May as well follow the Bill Parcells manta of cooking the meal and buying the groceries, so let Jarron make the choices. I do think RB in his present role as president is well suited for that role and is doing a very good job. While I also agree that Buddy Nix was a good football man, it could be while he was great at scouting players, to make the actual decision on who to pull the trigger on is not the same and maybe in hindsight that was something that Nix was not good at. He can tell you every players strengths and weaknesses, but de-cyphering that into who to select may not be as easy as you'd think, so could be that was Buddy's downfall. Yes agree, even now there have been many threads started and many responses to should we trade up, trade down, or should we select a TE, RT, WR, LB, or QB with the first round pick. So is easy three years from now to find evidence to support the argument that we as fans knew better.

IF you're right that one of those QB's you'd do much better trading with some team below who wants a QB and get extra picks. If I'm Jax and made that trade, I'd be taking a hell of a risk that some other team doesn't trade up to #8 to take him prior.

With everything being equal, I question if the NFL really does want a team in Canada?? First you have CFL issues to deal with. Then you have TV contracts to sort through. Will players want to be paid in Canadian $$? Many NHL players have signed with US teams to avoid Canadian taxes. Granted the exchange rate is better these days than it use to be, but with the tax issues, do they really want that? Is the NFL's plan to just dangle the potential of maybe getting a team in front of Toronto and London to get them to pay big bucks for rights to games, hoping they someday may get a team? Yeah I get it that it's a huge market people wise, but will there really be interest? How'd the one game played there each year work out?? I realize that's different thaan having your own team, but is there really interest?

Yes that does help very much. All your statement now means is in your opinion he's out, but you know nothing else other than you're of the mindset that whatever is written in the press is completely correct and everyone will be completely upfront and tells exactly what they are planning to do. There's others like myself who don't reside on Fantasy Island that believe until the day things are finalized he's not going to reveal anything. He may still be extremely interested, but gets outbid, so what good would come out of that being revealed? Now there can be 20 columns in the Boston Globe about how JJ is ready to bail at the first chance he gets. Or there hasn't even been bidding criteria developed yet, so why reveal plans.

As was pointed out he could have sold prior to his death for $1 billion and be on the hook to pay capitol gains tax on the full $1 billion, cost for that roughly $400 mil. Or her lets the team go to his estate and all the capital gains tax goes away. Capitol gains tax is different than estate taxes, those he can't avoid, but there likely are games he could have played to reduce those. And yes capital gains tax I believe is netted out from estate tax, but there are things to do to reduce or pay off the impact of estate taxes, capital gains taxes are harder to get around. I don't care how rich you are you can be worth billions or worth $50k, you're not going to hand the govt 39.6% just to make your day! He did exactly what he should do and the same as every other owner has done.

I recall this was discussed awhile back, there was skeptisim as to whether this was correct or not, apparently it is: The 'Jock Tax' This tax, levied by 22 individual states on high-earning traveling workers, is called the jock tax because its most high-profile targets are famous athletes like basketball and football players. Technically, it is the most common form of what’s called “nexus,” which taxes income earned out-of-state. So, for example, Seahawks and Broncos players who traveled to New Jersey to play the Super Bowl will owe the state taxes on a percentage of their income when they file their 2014 tax return -- because New Jersey is where they earned it. Who may be subject: Athletes are targeted by this tax because both their salaries and schedules are made public, but states have also tried to target traveling musicians, lawyers and bankers by looking up their travel records. Even if you aren’t a famous athlete or musician, if you travel for work, you should be on the lookout for this tax. What you should know: ”The minute you spend one hour in a state on business, you could have, depending on the state rule, nexus there,” explains Rosen. “Every state has a different law.” And even if you don’t report your out-of-state income, you might not skirt this tax—other people could be reporting for you. “If you work for someone, they could write on your W-2 that you are in different states, that you go to different offices. If you’re self-employed, you might get a 1099 that is filed in that state office,” he says. “Or at a trade show, state officials may come up to you and say, ‘Are you registered to do business in this state?’ If you don’t report, your accountant is going to have to do a lot more work.” If you cross state borders in your work, inform your accountant of all earnings in other states—or at the very least, where you’ve traveled for business and what you were doing there. And yes, if this tax applies to you … you’ll want an accountant.

Realistically Green Bay is the one team that playing on a Monday night in December would mean nothing to them.

So then lets start a rumor; "Pats moving to LA" Problem solved!

I have to believe this entire stadium committee wouldn't be working as they are unless they have inside information that the team is staying in Western NY long term. Conversely part of the agreement may be that they also build a new stadium. RG being from Jamestown also helps things out IMO. I don't live in western NY anymore, so don't keep up all hear that much about hockey, but from what I see from a distance, Perulia didn't seem to live up to many of his promises. Has he really spent the money like he promised or has he just been the victim of spending it poorly or being advised to spend it poorly.

For my 2000 post!! If you don't know who he is (which I also agree with) why would you trade up for so much uncertainty? The more you're hearing it sounds like the QB's you mention may drop to #9 anyway, or at least one of them. If they do all get taken earlier, which I'm hoping, then there will instead be some good talent dropping down to nine like Watkins, Mack or Evens. All three of those QB's could be a franchise QB or they could be the next Ryan Leaf, which is about the same as you can say about Manual. So why waste another high pick on someone with no guarantees to be any better? This idea of having two guys compete, all you end up with then is two players fighting for snaps, and neither gets enough to develop, or one doesn't get any. Once the regular season starts,the typical backup QB gets about five snaps a week if they're lucky with the first team, not exactly a good way to develop. Either way until you know for certain what will happen to Manual, you're just wasting another draft pick. As far as I'm concerned the best hing that can happen to Buffalo is all three of them QB's do get take nearly, as that means other top talent will drop to #9

I'd rather see them take another lineman in the 3rd, a guard rather than a TE. We have a log jam and TE right now on the roster, it's not like def backfield where you keep eight or nine, you only need three and we already have like five. PS one more to 2000!!!

Well at least until October we can same we're owned by the hottest looking owner in the league!

If he's Fits wit ha better arm, I'll be thrilled, as that's starting material. The thing that did in Fitz was his arm.

You sound like my mother now as I've had this same discussion with her, just on a much smaller scale. And I'll tell you the same thing as I told her, any company would, just not a very good return. You give them $300 million at 3% which insurance companies ten years ago were paying even better rates than that, but even at 3% would be worth $400 million today. Ten years back likely could have got 5% even This technique BTW was explained to me by a financial planner so this is a recommended strategy for situations like this. It was also mentioned in some of the articles this week discussing RW's situation. That $300 million is now removed from the estate ten years ago as he no longer had that at the time of death. The insurance policy then pays upon his death, but insurance policy payouts are exempt from taxes. You then use that money to pay the estate tax.

Like has been stated in some columns, and easy way to handle the estate taxes is RW could have taken out an insurance policy to cover that. If he did it say ten years back wouldn't have cost him all that much. It's an easy way to sort of move money from taxable to non taxable, then use that money to pay the taxes. That may have been what Irsay and some of these others like Lamar Hunt, Adams, etc have all done.