Orton's Arm

Surely you realize that the financial success of the NFL--or of any professional sports league for that matter--comes at the direct financial expense of its fans? Suppose you were to reduce the NFL's revenues to 25% of what they are now. Player salaries would fall in direct proportion to the revenue decrease. Other expenses could be reduced as well. You'd have a league that was still profitable, albeit on a smaller scale. You'd have the same men playing football, but instead of signing $100 million contracts they'd be signing contracts for $25 million. In other words, there's no benefit to the NFL being well off financially, unless you're a player or an owner or a coach. But back when salaries were smaller, you had coaches like Vince Lombardi and quarterbacks like Bart Starr. I think that your argument stems from the fact that a portion of the local revenues teams generate counts towards the salary cap--and therefore drive up expenses for people like Ralph Wilson. Obviously, that's not good. But if people follow my advice by reducing their acceptance of advertising, the companies that promote those sponsorships will start getting less value for their money, and will spend elsewhere instead.

Why not? The Bills have a big stadium, and seem to sell a higher percentage of their tickets than many teams from larger markets. If you take away the commercial money, it would reduce revenues for all owners about equally. It would also reduce expenses for all owners equally, because the salary cap would be a lot lower. The Bills were in Buffalo before television revenue became that big a deal. They could stay in Buffalo if television revenue once again shrank.

The points you made are good. I agree the money he's getting is ridiculous. My hope would have been to extend him in year 2 or 3 for a much more reasonable figure than what he's getting paid right now.

If advertisers thought they could do that and get away with it, they'd do it. They're not going to say, "Wow! I'm perfectly content with the huge sums of money we're making on the TV, so I'm not going to seek new revenue streams elsewhere." No--they'll take every second of our time we let them have. There is no limit whatsoever to the amount of advertising you'll be subjected to, except insofar as you set one.

I guess the Jennings situation bothers me because he was TD's best draft pick on the OL. As Bill from NYC said, if you want top-flight OL, you're probably going to have to draft them. I admit that if Jennings continues to spend time on injured reserve, TD's decision will look like a good one. But if he comes back strong, and stays on the field for the next few years, he'll be a real boost to San Francisco.

Let's see . . . the Vikings drafted an offensive lineman, he worked out well, so they extended his contract before it expired. Some GMs would have shrugged their shoulders, let the guy head to San Francisco in free agency, and have replaced him with a Mike Gandy.

Are you honestly implying that cable companies are only charging what they need to to cover their costs? Or that there's only enough advertising to give the NFL what it needs? Please. Cable companies used to provide advertising-free channels. That was what your cable bill paid for. Then gradually, advertising began creeping into most of those channels. Meanwhile, cable bills went up. It was an imbalance of power between customers and cable companies, and customers got raped. The NFL is another example. The salary cap goes up every year--which means the league's revenues go up each year. That, in turn, means the league is getting progressively better at extracting money from its fans each year. Most of that money gets pocketed by millionaire players, while the rest goes to the likes of Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones. Should I feel encouraged that this category of people has gotten better at absorbing everyone else's money? Or that the way they're getting the extra money is by reducing the quality of the game? Forget that. I see absolutely no reason why NFL players, football owners, cable companies, or television networks should be getting any more money than they are right now. I see absolutely no reason why I should waste my time sitting through yet another Budweiser ad. TiVo all the way!

Fans can't do much of anything to either help or hurt their teams. That 5-11 record isn't a reflection on Bills fans or on the city of Buffalo. What is a reflection on us is that we've supported a (usually) bad football team through thick and thin. I realize there are diehard Patriots fans too, and I don't want to disrespect them. But it's not the same fan situation in Boston as it is in Buffalo. The Bills matter a lot more to Buffalo than the Patriots mean to Boston.

I think the way it works is this: if you win the toss, you get to choose either possession or which end of the field you want. If you made a possession-related choice (either to kick or to receive) the other team gets to decide which end of the field they want to defend. And if you made a field-related choice, the other team gets to make a possession-related one. At the beginning of the second half, whichever team lost the coin toss gets to choose first. They'll almost always make a possession-related choice (i.e., to receive), which means the team that won the coin toss then gets to choose which end of the field they want to defend.

Everyone who posts on this board has an odd way of spending his or her spare time.

Poor or not, he's been a lot more interesting than my imposter.

Five starters in six years. That's almost one starter a year, as opposed to one starter every 2 1/2 years under TD. Interesting. So at least part of the problem is that TD didn't do well in rounds 3 - 7. But still. If you're handed a team with no offensive line--which was the case when TD took over--there's no excuse for a five year tenure with only one offensive lineman taken in the first two rounds. In contrast, TD spent two rounds 1&2 draft picks on running backs, another on a speed receiver, and two more on slot receivers. Slot receivers for crying out loud! What on earth is the good of a slot receiver when the quarterback is lying on his back, and the runningback gets tackled in the backfield?

I ought to do that one of these days. But regardless, the point of my sig still stands: - Option 1: you can expect almost nothing from your rounds 3 - 7 picks. If this is the case, TD neglected the offensive line by only using a single pick from the first two rounds on it, while using eight such picks on offensive skill position players. - Option 2: You ought to be able to expect something significant from at least some of your rounds 3 - 7 picks. In this case, TD messed up by only finding two current starters in rounds 3 - 7 over the course of his five years.

I'm not a fan of the agreement that got hammered out, on many levels. It gave more money to players, which is a bad thing. They're overpaid enough already. I would have supported an increase in the minimum salary, but not in the overall percentage of revenues that go to players. This would have forced teams to give a larger share of their payrolls to the minimum wage guys. The other thing I didn't like about the new agreement was its failure to adequately address the growing revenue disparities between big market teams and small market teams. The more local revenue a team like Dallas generates, the higher the salary cap becomes, and the harder it becomes for a small market team like the Bills to stay competitive and financially viable.

IIRC, the Dolphins moved Bennie back to his natural position of right guard. You can get away with being fat and slow at right guard moreso than at left guard.

Ha! My sig stays the same. There are still only two starters on this team that TD drafted in rounds 3 - 7!

You seem like an intelligent guy. But with all due respect, I think his point was about more than just that one game. Most Bills fans feel that if there's a bad call in a Bills/Patriots game, it's almost always gone against the Bills. The best example of that was the defensive pass interference call that cost the Bills a win a few years back. More recently, a very debatable offensive pass interference penalty on Moulds cost the Bills what otherwise might well have been a win. In other words, a Patriots fan complaining about bad officiating is like OJ Simpson complaining about there being too many knifings nowadays.

You hit the nail on the head in this post, from start to finish.

Thanks for the intelligent post. I want to discuss one of the things you wrote: the coaching situation. When TD got here, the Bills had a well-coached 3-4 defense, but a poorly coached offense and special teams. TD should have brought in an offensive-oriented coach who would have left the defensive coaching staff and defensive scheme intact. Instead, his final four coaching selections all came from the defensive side of the football. The hire of Gregg Williams/Jerry Gray led to a decline in the quality of the Bills' defensive coaching, while doing absolutely nothing to solve the coaching problems on offense.

Thanks for the information. Do you happen to know the details of this? For instance, does Bledsoe get $2 million in salary his first year, $2 million his second year, and $8 million his third year? If so, it's really a 2 year, $6 million deal. But even if that's the case, I agree it's a much better contract than I'd thought.

Normally you'd be right. But in this case, the 2003 draft was a lot stronger than the 2002 draft. Here are some players who were taken around the time the Bills would have had a pick had it not been for the Bledsoe trade, or a little lower: - Troy Polamalu, SS. I know you'd love it if the Bills had used a first on a SS. - George Foster, T. Denver's starting right tackle. - Rex Grossman, QB. A Bledsoe-like career average of 6.68 yards per attempt, plus he's still with the team that drafted him. - Dallas Clark, TE, Colts - Richard Seymour, DE, Patriots And had the Bills traded up a few slots, they could have had Jordan Gross, the starting right tackle for the Panthers. Or had they traded down, they could have picked up Eric Steinbach at the top of the second round.

I messed up. He was given a three year deal with a $2 million bonus.

You seem to be forgetting a few things. The most obvious is that Bledsoe cost the Bills a first round pick, while Warner didn't cost his teams any draft choices at all. Secondly, Warner was benched because the Giants had used the first overall pick on a quarterback, and wanted to see what he could do. But when the Cardinals gave him a chance, he played well enough during his ten starts to unseat a younger player, and to earn a long-term contract. If you're just looking at raw numbers, obviously a guy who's playing is going to be getting more yards and TDs than a guy sitting on the bench. But when given the opportunity what can a guy produce? That's where looking at yards or TDs per attempt comes in handy.

Yes, and Travis Henry doesn't fit that description at all.

It's been nice chatting with you too. You're right in saying Bledsoe has had a lot of TD passes these last two years. He's also had a lot of pass attempts. Over the last two years, Bledsoe has averaged 0.045 TD passes per pass attempt. In other words, about one out of every 22 Bledsoe passes has gone for a TD. Over the course of his career, Holcomb has averaged 0.046 TD passes per pass attempt. About one out of every 22 Holcomb passes has gone for a TD. As for the Canton stuff, I strongly believe it would be a mistake to put Bledsoe in Canton. Dave Krieg ranks pretty well on that yardage list too, and I don't see him getting into Canton. Yes, career yardage totals do matter in a Canton discussion. But if the yards per pass attempt stat isn't there--which it isn't for Bledsoe--and if you don't see the guy taking over a game very often at all, I don't see how you could enshrine him. Maybe back in the late '90s Bledsoe could win games with his arm. But that was a long time ago. IIRC, the Cowboys signed Bledsoe for pretty close to the vet minimum. I'm pretty sure players like Holcomb and even Nall are making more. In a free market, prices get bid up or down depending on the perceived value of the underlying good or service. At this stage in his career, the perceived value of Bledsoe's play is low.