Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

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.

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.