Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

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.

As far as trade value matching the chart usually the factor is whether it's the buyer or seller pushing for the swap. If it's us calling the other teams we may take a bit less, if say it's the team with pick #20 is calling us wanting to move up, then we can ask for a little more per your chart ,we don't give up the 4th If we're calling them, then we give up the 4th and maybe even a 7th. But over all I do agree that teams follow the chart for the most part.

Mary Wilson does NOT control the will, the executor controls the will That could be Mary, but so far the only thing that was reported is the Littman is ONE of the executors of the trust, haven't seen anything about the will, likely it's a pour-over will anyway. Could be the same people, could be totally different people. From what's been reported the team was left to the trust at least for now, whether the instructions are to sell it or not is unknown and has been mentioned, may never be known as the details of the trust don't need to be made public. A good accountant likely could back calculate what was done based on tax filings, but would be way after the fact. While I know RW has stated publicly that his family didn't want to run the team, first off he hasn't stated that in quite awhile. From what I've read, every time some sportswriter mentions that it's based on what RW stated years ago I have not seen any statements made by RW lately to that affect. Maybe that is still the case or maybe RW plans today are to leave the team in the trust indefinitely and Mary and the remaining beneficiaries get the profits from the trust every year. The trust makes zero profit every year, as all the money is passed through to the heirs which actually is kind of common practices in trusts to do that as trust tax rates are much higher at low income levels, though in this case Mary's personal tax rates may be as high as the trust rates, though she may have many things sheltered. While they are likely both millionaires or even billionaires, they don't appear to live lavish lifestyles, so could be she won't see most of the money, thus low tax rates.

When has Ralph or Mary stated she doesn't want it recently? I know RW made that statement many years ago, but it hasn't been repeated since. Maybe MW wants nothing to do with owning the Bill's, well even if I hated football I can think of one thing wose than owning the team, and that's paying around $400 mil in taxes which she could avoid by taking the team. Maybe she's the owner, but a completely silent partner. The one thing she does is show up once a month to pick up her check fro mthe profits. I'm not at all convinced that there isn't a complete succession plan in place, but for whatever reason, RW has refused to ever make it known. In the last 24 hours I've read alot about RW sense of humor. Maybe this is his last joke, surprised, the team is here forever. Or it remians in the trust forever. Trusts are often written so they will end 25 years after the last beneficiery dies which could be many years as could be young grandchildren in there.

I think it's kind of fitting in a way that it happened during the week of owners meetings while all 32 are in one location.

I recal lreading a story a number of years back that one week he was able to get himself assigned to pilot the Bill's charter to their away game that week. From what I recall of the story, when the Bill's boarded the plane, he announced to them who he was and that he was their poilot that day. It was back far enough that a number of Bill's actually still knew who he was too.

Before I read it, my guess had been Rex Ryan

I'm sure there would be a ton of posters here willing to help save you a few bucks and do it for you. Who needs Obamacare around here! I have a hard time believing that 32 teams don't have Evens on their board, so this means nothing.

Just means you need to run it in from the 25. Considering how everyone is bunched at the line, probably not that much tougher than from the two as once you're past the initial group of players, likely would have a clear field ahead.

Here's the problem I see with your logic. So why not just use one of those 1st round picks and draft that sure fire franchise QB? Answer is because we or anyone else really have no good way of predicting who that guy will be. So if we don't know who he'll be, why would another team who also doesn't know who that franchise guy will be make the trade and give up on a sure thing? Second problem is as you've eluded to we're just a QB away from being real good. You could draft that next star QB, but again the issue is first figuring out who he is, then you still may likely need to wait a couple of years for him to develop into that star. Well that's the same problem these teams you mention as trading partners, for the most part, they are also either close to or already winning teams, so they'd be taking a step back in time to make that trade, so again why would they. The only way I could see a team even consider making the deal would be if they were a team with a very good QB, but the team was complexly on the down side of winning. Looking at your list, there really aren't any teams in the category with a good QB on a terrible team. Likely the reason is the good QB elevates the entire team around him. I'd als obe scared to death of any team willing to make that trade as likely the QB we'd be getting must not be nearly as good as we think, else why would the team have given him up.

It's been quite awhile now, but I kind of liked it.

Yeah I was thinking about that recently myself. I'm not sure it has anything to do with this years draft class as much as just the preception that next year always looks better. There was a thread here the other day talking about he amazing 2015 FA list of wide receivers. The future always looks better until it gets here! On another note I was just reading the other day about some 7th grader out in Montana who is likely to break all of Peytons Mannings passing record.

Supposedly the Bills are excited about the two late seaso npickups at guard JJ Uglia and someone else, can't recall whom? So if they are even half correct with them two, maybe guard isn't quite so bad, though still could use a mid round draft pick for future years. I do think Chandler is better than average . Personally I 'd like them to go after Evens with the 1st round pick

To shortern this thread I propose renaming it to: "List the all-time Bills NON Jerks"

With all this tackle talk in the first round, so if you were the coach you'd be fine with telling Mathews that we've drafted him to play RT?? Doubt he'd be too happy, well guess he'd be fine with it as long as the Bill's are willing to pay him LT money to play RT, but not so sure that would happen. Or someone could suggest moving Glenn to RT, and he doesn't like that too bad. And that will work just fine..... until Glenns contract runs out and he bolts for some team that's seen enough of him the the first two years to pay him LT money to play LT. Then we can have another 50 page thread here about how the Bill's let their stars walk.

Agree Beerball, even if they cut Smith and Claussin that would still leave them with four, which is one more than you normally keep. So who's the next one you're going to cut? Gragg, Moeaki? Unless they feel Moeaki is not healthy, I also can't see them taking another one. Also can't see taking a RT at #9, that's crazy. So my take is WR, Evens should be there which is good as he's much different than their other WR

Exactly, Taking a TE is just wasting draft picks and/or $$. You can't keep dumping players or picks you just got without giving them time to mature and prove their worth or lack there of. You don't even list the blocking TE Lee Smith believe is his name, that makes five total. Likely two of those five will be cut, now we want to add a sixth. It's different with DB, lineman, evan receivers where you have a large number of them on the roster so not a big deal cutting one of the weaker ones to make room for a better player. But really think Chandler, Moeaki and Gragg are worth looking at unless they already know one of them isn't as good as they've been letting on. What they don't have is that big WR which is why I'd like to see the pick be Evens. I'm almost hoping Watkins is gone by #9 which sounds like will be the case so no big debate as to which one to take. While I do think Watkins likely will be very good, to me he's another clone of Woods, may be better, but still very similar. Evens gives them something much different. (another James Hardy:) )

If Watkins fell to maybe #7 so the price isn't too much, then maybe try and trade up. Though I'd be very happy with Evens. The Bill's already have a Watkins clone in Woods, what they don't have a is a big WR which Evens would bring. so IMO if they could get Evens at #9 I wouldn't waste picks moving up.

The one advantage I see in Fitz, in all seriousness would be less likely to have a QB controversy. If EJ plays bad, few people would be screaming for Fitz to play, where as if they sign Vick or the guy who went to Tampa, could be more of a distraction

Could be they plan to draft a MLB but want to give him a year to develop, so use Spikes this coming season, let him move on and play the guy you draft this year in 2015.

So assuming we sign Spikes, what offense line players are still out there? I'm kind of figuring we will still resign Leonhard. At this point if we then sign Spikes, I'm thinking that's about the only area I can see them still maybe signing someone a would be for the O-line and maybe more depth. Supposedly the Bill's like the late season signings they made a guard, so may figure they are OK there. Do they sign a tackle or draft a RT in 2nd round or so. Any good lineman left that won't cost a fortune??

Sure on March 11th you could have paid double for him! Now you can get him from the daly old half off bakery table.

Whether he does sign with the Bill's or some other team, I'm sure Buffalo could have signed him on Tuesday for around $10 mil more than he'll likely get now. Kind of shows the Bill's front office is smarter than many of the posters here and let prices settle down and get the same guy from the day old bakery table for half off. Which brings up another question I'm wondering about more with each year of free angency. Does free agency work from the team side particually around these first day signings. Do teams ever get good value? You hear and read all about the failures, the defensive end from Washington (Haynesworth was it) being a complete bust along with many other busts. Are there truely many more 1st/2nd day busts than successes or does the news just report the failures as it sells more readers? You'll always have a team like Denver who has a very small window to win taking risks, but for teams like Washington Dallas, Raiders, etc are they just completly wasting money with so many holes to fill. Or is it becoming a realization that the better approach is to follow the model of Green Bay, Pitt, Giants (and maybe Buffalo too) of signing mostly depth players and low level starters to put around your stars who you get via the draft. And on occasion you do make a bigger FA signing like a Mario Williams, if this is true Spikes, etc. You also resign your own players when reasonable, but knowing there are some who are going to bolt for whatever reason, fell their worth is more, don't like Bufflao, etc. And when that does happen there will always be some team out there in the small window catagory who will over pay to get him. It's tough right now here in Buffalo as we don't yet have enough stars to easily absorb players like Byrd leaving where as NE can move on without seemingly losing much.

Authority?? All you need to do is see a picture of her to know she likes wings and anything else you can eat. She'd do a decent job at NT herself!