Cash

Very good post. As a fan, I very much hope that things really have changed, but I've been burned too many times to expect it until I see it. (And even then I've been burned -- see 2008 & 2011.) When an organization has such a strong pattern of failure over such a long period, I have to take a step back and say that regardless of what went into each individual decision, there is a fundamental organizational problem. K-9, you can defend each individual decision all you want, and you can blame every indefensible one on a since-fired coach, but the bottom line is that if every team really was run like the Bills, then the Bills would be average. Instead, they're moribund. It's hard to be really good in the NFL, but it's also hard to be really bad for very long. Between the draft and the huge amount of variance in such a short season, even a bad organization should get passable for stretches here and there. Even Mike Brown's Bungles have had some recent success, and I don't think anyone would claim he's a good owner or deny that he's cheap. I hope change is in the air, but even if it isn't, I'll still keep hoping for the best every year. If Mike Brown can skinflint his way to Marvin Lewis and 4 playoff appearances in 10 years, than so can Ralph!

Thanks for bringing up Hangartner -- that one had slipped my mind. That's another guy who was snapped up by his former team (in that case, the Panthers) as soon as the Bills cut him, and wound up starting that year. Very similar to the L. Walker situation -- I find it very difficult to believe that the coaching staff really felt that a multi-year starter had no use to the team, not even as a depth player. Walker could have went back to RT where he'd started the previous 2 years, or been kept as the swing tackle. Hangartner could have been moved to RG (where he started for Carolina) or kept as the primary backup to all 3 interior line positions. K-9, you and the Bills appear to agree that if a player was signed to be a starter, and no longer factors in as a Week 1 starter, he should be cut in favor of a cheaper player. I think that unless the team has budget or cap space problems, it would be vastly preferable to keep an experienced backup on the roster. And I also think that if there are Littman/Overdorf-driven cuts, this is where they happen: on the margins, with veteran players who aren't starting. The coaching staff can justify parting ways with a backup, and the fans (except us obsessives) don't care. I doubt cutting Walker or Hangartner ever cost the Bills a dime in revenue. Failing to give a huge contract to OJ or Jimbo or Bruce would have cost a huge amount in terms of ticket sales, merchandise, etc. So I don't think the fact that Ralph has given out big contracts tells us much about whether he and/or his finance guys have been meddling with the roster. I can't say I'm sure that Ralph/Littman/Overdorf have made those kind of moves, but I think the evidence points more towards yes than no.

Any of you guys wind up in this? Fred Jackson surprises season ticket holders

The bolded is only a "football" concern if you are tight on cap space. If you have plenty of cap room, which the Bills typically do, a player's salary is largely irrelevant. The concern shouldn't be "is he worth X million dollars?", but rather "is he better than the street free agent who would take his roster spot?" The Langston Walker cut is the one that really jumps out as fishy. I can't be 100% certain that it was a Littman/Overdorf cut, but it can't just be explained away by "he didn't fit the scheme". Walker was signed to play RT in 2007, and started all 32 games in 2007 & 2008. In 2009, after Jason Peters was traded, it was announced that Walker would be flipping over to LT to replace him. He struggled in this role during the preseason. Prior to the start of the season, it was announced that Demetrius Bell, 2nd-year 7th-round pick with no NFL experience, would be the starting LT. Walker was not kept as a backup LT or starting (or even backup) RT, and was instead released. The same head coach who started him every game in 2007 & 2008 suddenly decided that he wasn't even good enough to be a backup? He wasn't better than Kirk Chambers or Jonathan Scott? That's ridiculous. Now, a lot of fans will probably explain that one away as simply gross incompetence on the part of Dick Jauron, and the sad thing is, I can't totally discount that. But it seems more likely to me that Jauron would've preferred to keep his 2-year starter as an experienced backup swing tackle, but wasn't allowed to keep a backup at Walker's salary.

Ah, now this makes more sense. Anderson would've been cut back when Wilson & Barnett were, but he wasn't healthy. As soon as he passed a physical, he went out the door. It's important to differentiate between cap room and actual money. Cutting Anderson costs the Bills cap space, but saves actual money. As uncle flap pointed out, hopefully the Bills accelerate all of the $4.5 million of dead money into this year's cap, because they're WAY under it. (Spotrac - scroll to the bottom) But in terms of actual payroll, all the dead money was part of Anderson's signing bonus -- the Bills don't need to cut him a check. Instead, they avoid paying his $2.4 million base salary. Whomever takes Anderson's roster spot will almost certainly make less than that. Again, I don't think money was the primary motivator for Anderson's release, but it was definitely part of the consideration. That doesn't make the Bills unusual -- if you don't think a guy will fit into your scheme, why pay him $2.4 million? But let's not pretend that this move ran counter to the Bills' financial interests. They have cap room to spare, so there's no competitive penalty to absorbing Anderson's dead money, and this move will cut costs this year, probably by $1.5 million to $2 million.

Good stuff, thanks for posting!

That's a pretty bold stance, particularly since most of ESPN's TV contracts for college sports are known to already have those out clauses. The ACC never would have gone so hard after Big East teams if it didn't mean renegotiating the TV deal. Do you really think that ESPN was the only bidder for the BCS deal? They were just allowed to dictate terms? This is just my opinion, but of course they're willing to pay more if there's more games. More games means more nights of high-ratings, high-revenue TV. Adding extra regular-season games might dilute a product, but adding extra playoff games has never done anything but increase revenue. See: NCAA tournament (particularly the move to 64 teams), MLB playoffs, NFL playoffs, NBA playoffs. Going from 3 playoff games to 7 means an extra 16+ hours of high-revenue programming for ESPN, to say nothing of the extra mileage they can get on Sportscenter and their talking heads shows. That's not worth any additional money?

Great stuff, thanks for posting! Off the top of my head, it looks like you're missing Erik Pears -- I know he signed an extension at some point. I think after the 2011 season? Not sure if anyone else is missing. Ha! Poster 1: [posts extensive if incomplete analysis that took significant time and effort to aggregate] Poster 2: "I'm not addressing this until you do it 31 more times." No, looking at the Bills in a vacuum doesn't come close to telling the whole story. But it's also not meaningless. Furthermore, BillsVet does have some comparative data in his post: The Bills winning % was 33% during the Nix regime, compared to the league average of 50%. So I don't think we should be sending Nix to the All Star game just yet. If you really think it's worthless, pick a team and do your own breakdown. It takes a village, you guys. Don't just dismiss BillsVet's work because it's not complete -- lend a hand and help finish the job! 32 posters can come together and break down the whole league! Or don't, whatever.

If that was the case, wouldn't Anderson have been cut earlier (right after OTAs, when Hughes' great performance was fresh on their minds) or later (during training camp, when they could see Hughes outplaying him every day)? I dunno. Just seems like odd timing. In the Bills' article on the subject, they said that Harrison's on Active PUP, which means he can be activated as soon as he's medically cleared. So not that big a deal? I don't have time to dive down the rabbit hole of trying to catch up on PUP rules, but I know there's also a PUP list that keeps guys out for at least the first 6 weeks. I believe the difference comes down to when the guy in question suffered his injury, but maybe the Active PUP is only available before training camp starts? If so, this is just good precautionary management by the Bills -- no downside. Jones and Nelson weren't cut, they hit free agency and the Bills declined to tender them as restricted free agents. Would've cost at least $1.33 million each to tender them. I'm cool with the decision to cut Anderson, because you have to do a cost-benefit analysis, and Anderson's doesn't shake out. But if a player of his age and pedigree (multiple 10+ sack seasons) was making the minimum, a team would absolutely wait until he looks like crap in training camp before cutting him. In fact, I expect him to quickly sign on somewhere once he clears waivers, and either make that team on potential or be part of the last set of cuts.

Bingo. Colleges are smart enough to put out clauses in their contracts. I'm reminded of the ACC's deal with ESPN, which they could renegotiate if ACC membership changed. Which is a big reason why they raided the Big East again. I don't know the particulars, but I'd be shocked if the football playoff deal didn't have significant out clauses in the event of playoff expansion or alteration.

Not against the cap, sure, but it does save the Bills actual cash in the form of Anderson's base salary that he won't be getting. I don't personally think that this cut was primarily financially-based, but do you really think he'd have been cut if he was making the minimum salary?

That Anderson was cut is not a surprise -- he was terrible (mostly due to injury) last year, someone else's signing, and probably not a good fit for the D. I think the timing is a surprise -- why right before training camp? Nothing has happened since the last OTA ended, why not cut him then? Or why not give him a shot in training camp and see if he surprises you in practice? The Bills are under the 90-man roster limit, so it wasn't necessary to free up a spot. This is more of a puzzler than a "the Bills suck!" moment, though. I wasn't expecting anything from Anderson this year, and looks like my expectations will be met. According to Spotrac, cutting Anderson puts $1.6 million of dead money on the cap this year, with another $3.0 million next year. So those of you complaining about the Bills not using their cap space should be happy that they found a use for some of it.

Stevie Johnson didn't give the Bills much of a home town discount, if at all. He got a fair deal from the Bills that met his needs and the team's needs. Johnson is in my view a mid-tier or slightly lower number one caliber of receiver. He is far from being an elite receiver. Re-signing with the Bills was a smart move on his part because he was able to be the primary receiver for the Bills which would not have been the case with the majority of other teams. I chose my words carefully up above -- I never said Stevie gave the Bills a discount. I said he signed a "nice" contract, and I would also use the word "fair". In my mind, a hometown discount is when either the player voluntarily takes a below-market deal to free up cap space (a la Brady recently), or if the player wants to be back so bad that he essentially accepts the team's first offer. Stevie's contract doesn't fit that bill to me. Given that Stevie was the first Bill to ever put up back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons, and did it with virtually no help at WR, it would have been very understandable if he wanted more than the 5 year, $36.25 million deal he got. I'd definitely rather have Stevie than Dwayne Bowe, and Bowe played on the franchise tag last year, then signed a 5 year, $56 million deal to come back to the Chiefs (which includes $36.25 million in just the first 3 years -- all numbers per spotrac). Now, Stevie's deal isn't exactly bad, but I think he could've gotten more if he had gone the Levitre route. No one would have been shocked if Stevie had said that he was going to test the market, and if his agent wanted him to sign a top 5 WR deal or something along those lines. I'm very glad that didn't happen, because Stevie's one of my favorite players. What I'm saying is that Stevie is the exception. Guys like Levitre or Byrd are the rule, particularly on a bad team in a small-market, cold-weather city. I don't know exactly what the answer is, because you can't overpay everybody, but you and the Bills seem to have an attitude of "we'll only bring back the ones who want to be here" (i.e., accept our slightly below-market contract offer). I'm just saying that that attitude seems awfully cavalier. I agree that the guys who want to be here should be top priority, and that it's smart to get those deals done. But I just think the team needs to get better at having a Plan B with the guys who don't "want to be here". I really get the impression that the Bills think they're going to convert the whole locker room into "True Bills". They think if they take care of the ones who kiss the ring (CHRIS KELSAY), everyone else will want a piece of that sweet contract extension action. And that strategy might actually work, if they had more Super Bowl wins than losing seasons in the last decade, but I don't see it ever turning around a loser.

Sorry, that's not correct. The 96% figure is for a combination of direct disbursement, scholarship programs (which together make up the 60% figure), the cost of putting on championships (13%), and "programs and national office services" & "other services (such as the eligibility center)" (23% together). For the BCS schools, most of those programs and services aren't benefiting them. Especially the eligibility center -- all that can do for them is prevent their recruits from being able to play. Even if we take the NCAA at face value, which is very generous given who we're talking about, the BCS schools can reasonable say that only something like 75% of the money gets back to them. (60% disbursement + scholarships, and with no NCAA, that 13% for putting on championships has to come from BCS schools instead.) Check the NCAA's Finances page for details. As to the revenue specifically, you're also mistaken. Again, taking the NCAA at face value (per their Revenue page), "NCAA revenue [for last year] was $871.6 million, most of which came from the rights agreement with Turner/CBS Sports. The total rights payment for 2011-12 was $705 million, or 81 percent of all NCAA revenue. Most of the remaining 18 percent of revenue came from championships (mostly ticket and merchandise sales)." Last year was actually a low year in terms of TV revenue as % of overall revenue -- it's usually around 85/86%, again according to the NCAA. But in any case, nearly all of their total revenue comes from the NCAA tournament -- 80+ percent from the TV rights, and most of the rest from ticket/merch sales. The NCAA does stage other championships besides basketball, but there's very little money in them. In terms of specific numbers, the Turner/CBS payout for the men's basketball TV rights was $705 million last year. If the NCAA was saying that they gave back 96% of that, it would work out to $676.8 million, which is about 78% of the NCAA's total revenue, not 60%. Breaking it down further, $705 million is 80.9% of the total revenue of $871.6 million. The NCAA listed "television and marketing rights fees" as 81% of total revenue. So the combined revenue of the women's basketball tournament, the college world series, the Frozen Four, and all other NCAA championships was probably less than $5 million last year. ($710.354 million total would round to 82%, and taking out the $705 million for the men's basketball tournament leaves us with $5.354 million.) That's exactly what I think. Whether it happens voluntarily or because of a court order, that is going to happen sooner or later. I won't predict when, because I've learned to never underestimate the ability of the wealthy & powerful to entrench themselves against change, but it will happen eventually. It could be delayed significantly if the schools/conferences decide to stop allowing EA to use player likenesses in games, because then if if O'Bannon wins, they wouldn't have to make payouts to active players going forward. And once you start giving money to players for anything, you can no longer use your circular "we can't pay them because they're amateurs" argument. However, in order to really insulate yourself from the threat of player likenesses, you have to: 1.) Make sure the in-game player avatars don't look like real players. Not just in terms of faces -- you want to make sure that heights, weights, builds, and skin colors are somewhat randomized compared to actual rosters. 2.) Stop using the actual jersey numbers of last year's team. 3.) Have at least some disconnect between the ratings of your in-game avatars and the perceived skills of last year's players. This is kind of touchy, because ratings are so subjective/controversial already. You could probably keep the ratings exactly the same and do #1 and #2 above, and many people would scream that the ratings are totally random. On the other hand, you could probably randomize the ratings (within reason: RBs/WRs/CB would still be fast, linemen still strong, etc.) and many other people would scream that the ratings still correspond to the actual players. Anyway, if you do all of those things, or even just the first two, then you run the risk of making a very expensive game that no one wants. I think the college audience is probably less into using specific players than the NFL audience (?), but even if that's true, it's hard to convince anyone to buy a new college football game if the rosters are just randomized every year. So if schools want to protect themselves against the O'Bannon lawsuit, it functionally means that there won't be any more college video games. Might take a year or two of bad sales to make it happen though.

Serious question: Isn't there a huge flaw with this logic, in that the teams you mentioned are all wildly successful, whereas the Bills are not? I think you're right that if [any player] "wants" to be with the Bills they will be signed. (Stevie Johnson is a great recent example -- he signed a nice extension that was probably lower than what he could've gotten from the highest bidder. He wanted to come back, and did -- but at a price that the Bills were comfortable with.) I tend to agree with the notion in this thread that the Bills (Overdorf?) come up with a number for a given player's worth and rarely back off it. And that number tends to be lower than what the player's price would be on the open market. But is it reasonable or feasible to expect players to "want to be with the team" when the team hasn't come close to a successful season in that player's career? When a player is willing to accept a fair but below-market deal (e.g., Stevie), that's great, and the Bills have shown some ability to pounce on those situations. But one of their mistakes seems to be that they expect all their good players to have that attitude, when only a fraction actually do. It's fine to stick to your financial guns when 80% of your good players are happy enough to take less than top dollar, but what happens when only 50% of your good players feel that way? What if it's only 20%? The Bills have been bad for a long time. What's the plan to turn that around? You say that if Wood/Spiller force their departure, so be it. Okay, in that scenario, the Bills have lost a ton of talent with little to no compensation. And they were talent-poor to begin with. So how do they fix things? Maybe the plan is to have 3 straight legendary drafts, where you acquire 10 total Pro Bowlers and 5 more quality starters, and most of those players also love living/playing in WNY. At the end of those 3 years, you've probably got a Super Bowl contender, and while you can't keep all of that talent, you can keep enough at team-friendly terms to keep contending, and then you plug in guys going forward a la the Steelers. I don't see this as remotely possible or even plausible. Maybe the plan is to hope you're right about EJ Manuel, and count on his ability as a franchise QB to elevate the team to the playoffs or Super Bowl contention. Then you can re-sign enough guys on your terms who want to be part of a winner, while replacing the rest with draft picks or cheaper veterans who want to play for a winner. This is a lot more plausible, and I hope it happens. But I can't say that it's likely. And I'd be more comfortable with the outlook of the team if it seemed like its future didn't solely hinge on their rookie QB panning out. If EJ is just mediocre, I find it hard to believe the Bills will have/retain enough supporting talent to be a real playoff team. Fitz was mediocre for a couple years, and we still didn't sniff the playoffs.

Most likely. However, the interesting implication is that EA Sports is legally claiming that they shouldn't be involved in Ed O'Bannon's lawsuit, because their hands are forced by the NCAA. If they directly negotiate licensing with the schools or conferences, then that argument goes away, and their exposure is greater. More importantly, the NCAA has been a shield of sorts for the individual schools in cases like this. If Alabama (or the SEC) starts directly selling rights to player likenesses to EA, they have huge exposure to legal action. And that's true whether they sell those rights at what they're worth, or do what the NCAA did and artificially price-fix those rights at $0. I'm very intrigued to see what happens next. EA has announced that their plan is to just negotiate with conferences and/or individual schools and retain all the rights they've had in the past (except the NCAA name and logo, which no one cares about). They're already used to paying extra for player likenesses in the Madden franchise, so legal losses are a lot less scary for them. For the schools, whose business model is built around free labor, those potential legal losses are a lot scarier. But I have to think that guaranteed short-term money from EA, combined with confidence in their legal teams, will lead to everyone signing up.

So in other words, it was a very necessary warning.

Correct. And continuing on to say that Marrone's history as head coach is one of de-emphasizing special teams. So even the one (possible) excuse for our special teams coach's poor track record will probably be irrelevant in this case. But who knows? I'm sure Marrone has learned a lot from his first 4 years of HC experience. Maybe "special teams need to be a higher priority" will be one of them.

Very good post! I know precisely about Chandler81 either as a mod or a poster, but I do know that viewed unto themselves, his posts in this thread and the Byrd thread come across as inappropriate for a mod. Maybe there's some past history that justifies such behavior; I wouldn't know either way. But regardless, I think there are better and classier ways to disagree with a poster, whether they be amateur or professional, anonymous or public.

You know it! NCAA was on my mind again after the EA announcement. Regarding the bolded, what's your source on that? I'd heard some time ago that the NCAA tournament TV deal was the primary source of income for the NCAA, and that they kept most of the money, but I confess that I don't remember where. It always made sense to me, though, because the recent conference re-alignments have been all about football (except the Catholic 7 splitting from Conference USA The Big East). Anyway, I did a quick bit of googling, and I can't find a direct corroboration of your 96% figure. Closest I've got is this, which says that "96 percent of [all] NCAA revenue benefits the membership through distributions or services". But only 60% is distributed directly to the schools -- about 23% or so is mostly tied up in mysteries programs and services, most of which are probably as helpful to schools and athletes as the "convenience fee" that TicketMaster charges. 13% is for the cost of putting on championships, which should probably count for these purposes, because that's overhead the schools/conferences don't currently have to pay. Of course, the schools also aren't receiving the revenue from those championships, which is significant. Or more accurately, school are only receiving 60% of the revenue from those championships, since money is fungible. Anyway, I was overstating it a bit, but my point largely stands: The NCAA is deeply dependent on its basketball tournament for operating income: "In most years, rights fees have accounted for about 85 percent of all NCAA revenue. In 2009-10, the media agreements constituted 86 percent of NCAA revenue. Most of the remaining 14 percent in 2009-10 came from championships (mostly ticket sales)." Last year was comparatively low at just 81% of revenue stemming from TV rights. (They don't give numbers for non-basketball TV rights, but based on the math, I think everything else combined is less than $1 million. Just dividing the CBS/Turner payout from last year into the NCAA's total revenue gives you 80.9%, so no other TV rights have a significant impact.) This year projects relatively high at 88% (per the same page). They don't give any breakdown of the "championship" (ticket sales) revenue, but my guess is that it's nearly all tickets to the NCAA tournament. Okay, so what's the point? The point is that in the big picture, the NCAA makes nearly all their money off of their basketball tournament, and can't survive without it. In the current system, schools are only getting something like 75% of that revenue back. It is my belief that the current environment of big-time collegiate athletics is one of extreme desperation for money, and I don't think big conferences will be happy long-term with the NCAA's huge cut off the top. One thing I definitely need to concede, though, is that in the short term, there'll be no changes. I didn't realize how much of the money did go back to the schools/conferences. And in the short term, the NCAA does provide a very valuable service: it keeps costs way down by ensuring free labor. I no longer think the superconference movement alone is enough to kill the NCAA. It'll take legal victories or the NCAA totally passing the buck to schools/conferences on the legal front. Once schools get to the point where they have to compensate players, the NCAA starts to lose its value. Maybe the NCAA will be smart enough to adapt and survive, or maybe the major conferences will be afraid enough of change that they'll continue to cut the NCAA in, but I hope not.

Fair point. However, SU's special teams were typically quite poor under Marrone, and appeared to be very low on the practice totem pole. I don't recall if he ever had a coach on staff whose sole job was special teams, but if he did, it was only 1 year, maybe 2 at the most. I know Marrone coached special teams himself one year, and I believe the D-coordinator coached them another year. I think another year, special teams were divided among 3 different assistant coaches. In other words, I am expecting some BAD special teams from the Bills this year. Depending on who returns kicks, that could still be exciting though. I don't know how much a coach can screw up a dynamic kick returner.

Don't need to start their own league; they already have those. Just need to start their own basketball tournament. The NIT has been a post-season tournament for ages, and used to be roughly on par with the NCAA tournament. Hypothetically speaking, if the Pac-16, Big 16 "Ten", 16-member SEC, and maybe a 16-member ACC? decided to stage a b-ball tournament to compete with the NCAA, it would be a huge draw, and could very conceivably beat the NCAA Tournament in the ratings. You are correct that the current football system gives tremendous profits to the schools/conferences, and they have no incentive to blow it up. Just minor tweaks like expanding conferences to add major media markets for their terrible cable networks. However, the current basketball system is comparatively very low-revenue, because the NCAA pockets the TV rights for its tournament, and that alone is most of the TV money for the entire basketball season. We know that the major conferences are extremely profit-focused these days. I wouldn't be surprised to see them make a move to take that tournament money for themselves. Possibly a compromise, wherein the NCAA heavily shares the tournament proceeds with the major conferences in return for a commitment to not start a rival tournament. As to your guess: The NCAA only has power or authority when things happen 1 school at a time. The only reason playing NCAA-sanctioned athletics means anything at all is because nearly every school has signed on to the NCAA. But if all the major conferences walked together, who cares if the NCAA dropped all of their football programs? They'd just continue playing each other in non-NCAA games. The BCS was formed by the (then) six major conferences working together -- not by the NCAA. They've shown that they're willing and able to handle their own business when it comes to monetizing college football's postseason. Now, how likely is my scenario? Right now, extremely unlikely. But if, in a couple years, we move to 4 superconferences with very few mid-majors left, I think it's pretty feasible. Especially if the NCAA loses a lawsuit in the interim. I really think that if the major conferences detect weakness in the NCAA, they will strike.

Ah, but you're forgetting about college FAs from past years. Freddie, Garrison Sanborn, David Snow, and Shawn Powell are all pretty likely to make the final roster, so we're looking at more like a half dozen UDFAs if your guess is correct about the rookies.

I disagree. Something subtle like 2 stripes on the sleeve instead of 3, or a ridge of red & blue around the collar instead of just white, sure. (Or the differences between official jerseys and DHGate knockoffs.) But I don't think it's possible to look at someone wearing the Nike jerseys and not see that collar. It's a major prominent feature right beneath the person's face. I feel like to not notice it, you would have to be unable to tell the difference between a t-shirt and a polo shirt.

December 21st, 1941: I just heard about a Japanese sneak attack! I despise the Axis powers! We need to do something about this!