Veterans Show Bills Type Character

[T master]

Despite The NFL lockout Drayton Florence took it upon himself to call others such as Stevie Johnson & Fitz to do some practice away from One Bills Drive . Even though the guy is a possible free agent this year . Given that kind of leadership i would think he should be given a long hard look at resigning him , we need leadership like that on this team .

 

You know if the guy is willing with all that is going on to be the first to put it out there & circle the wagons as only Bills players can do , you know he'll put it all on the field week after week . Plus be a great example to the rookies & second year players!! Maybe Donte should take notes !!

 

Cudo's to you Drayton

 

Go Bills !!!!!!

[BillsPhan]

Despite The NFL lockout Drayton Florence took it upon himself to call others such as Stevie Johnson & Fitz to do some practice away from One Bills Drive . Even though the guy is a possible free agent this year . Given that kind of leadership i would think he should be given a long hard look at resigning him , we need leadership like that on this team .

 

You know if the guy is willing with all that is going on to be the first to put it out there & circle the wagons as only Bills players can do , you know he'll put it all on the field week after week . Plus be a great example to the rookies & second year players!! Maybe Donte should take notes !!

 

Cudo's to you Drayton

 

Go Bills !!!!!!

 

How great. Florence, Johnson and Fitzy are practicing, while they and their fellow NFL players are all suing Ralph Wilson and his fellow owners for the right to destroy the NFL as we know it. What character! What great guys. To me, there is no "debate" here. The players are allowed to become rich because the owners spend the money to run the National Football League. End of story. The fans pay to watch the players, but the owners put the teams in the fans' cities, and that trumps it for me. Now, former players and player unions have done a good job making sure the owners have paid the players more then their fair share, and I respected those players and unions for fighting the good fight in 1982 & 1987. I also respected the players and union of today for making sure they get more then their fair share of the insane 9 Billion dollars a year the NFL now earns.

 

But this "union de-certification" crap the players pulled first in 1989, and now today, is inexcusable. It is disrespectful, hypocritical, and makes a mockery of every bit of good any union has ever done for it's members in any other walk of life. Peyton Manning, on the threshold of being paid about $25 Million dollars a year for the rest of his career, has filed suite against Jim Irsay, the owner in Indy who is ready and willing to sign that check??

 

Forcing the NFL and the owners to waste tax dollars in front of a federal judge for God knows how long, defending the very anti-trust exemption that has allowed Peyton Manning and his wealthy buddies to become rich in the first place, is arrogance run amok. What if the judge rules that the NFL can no longer exist as it has? No draft. No trades. Nothing but total across the board one year free agent contracts allowed from now on. Do the idiot players even realize this can happen? Do the idiot players hope this will happen? Can they be that stupid?

 

Yes, I believe they can be, and are that stupid.

Edited March 12, 2011 by BillsPhan

[Thoner7]

Florence is one of the best players on the team. I am suprised the Bills havnt resign him already - but I guess ti could be due to teh CBA. Regardless, if he isnt back next year, itll be another huge blunder by this team.

[Astrobot]

Florence was on the field 2nd most often (Kelsay=#1). He was #1 in running plays defended, and we've already gotten rid of #4 (Stroud). He was #1 in the number of plays he was in pass coverage as well. You can't rise from the #32 position in run defense without Drayton Florence.

Edited March 12, 2011 by Astrobot

[NoSaint]

Despite The NFL lockout Drayton Florence took it upon himself to call others such as Stevie Johnson & Fitz to do some practice away from One Bills Drive . Even though the guy is a possible free agent this year . Given that kind of leadership i would think he should be given a long hard look at resigning him , we need leadership like that on this team .

 

You know if the guy is willing with all that is going on to be the first to put it out there & circle the wagons as only Bills players can do , you know he'll put it all on the field week after week . Plus be a great example to the rookies & second year players!! Maybe Donte should take notes !!

 

Cudo's to you Drayton

 

Go Bills !!!!!!

 

This isn't unique, FA Heath Evans is doing the same in new orleans, and I'm guessing many around the league are doing the same. It's easy good will for a guy seeking a pay day.

[3rdand12]

I am hoping we will keep him after watching him play last year. I like the guy. No pro bowler or shut down but a strong asset back there.

[Spiderweb]

How great. Florence, Johnson and Fitzy are practicing, while they and their fellow NFL players are all suing Ralph Wilson and his fellow owners for the right to destroy the NFL as we know it. What character! What great guys. To me, there is no "debate" here. The players are allowed to become rich because the owners spend the money to run the National Football League. End of story. The fans pay to watch the players, but the owners put the teams in the fans' cities, and that trumps it for me. Now, former players and player unions have done a good job making sure the owners have paid the players more then their fair share, and I respected those players and unions for fighting the good fight in 1982 & 1987. I also respected the players and union of today for making sure they get more then their fair share of the insane 9 Billion dollars a year the NFL now earns.

 

But this "union de-certification" crap the players pulled first in 1989, and now today, is inexcusable. It is disrespectful, hypocritical, and makes a mockery of every bit of good any union has ever done for it's members in any other walk of life. Peyton Manning, on the threshold of being paid about $25 Million dollars a year for the rest of his career, has filed suite against Jim Irsay, the owner in Indy who is ready and willing to sign that check??

 

Forcing the NFL and the owners to waste tax dollars in front of a federal judge for God knows how long, defending the very anti-trust exemption that has allowed Peyton Manning and his wealthy buddies to become rich in the first place, is arrogance run amok. What if the judge rules that the NFL can no longer exist as it has? No draft. No trades. Nothing but total across the board one year free agent contracts allowed from now on. Do the idiot players even realize this can happen? Do the idiot players hope this will happen? Can they be that stupid?

 

Yes, I believe they can be, and are that stupid.

 

Are you another tool of the rich, or are you incredibly wealthy?. De-certifying in inexcusable, but breaking (OK, opting out, same thing) is not? Then in doing so, claiming costs, expenses, etc., that they're unwilling to show, but demand the players accept at face value? Owners greed is what's led to NFL licensed merchandise being ridiculously over priced, the raising of ticket prices, parking increases, PSL's, TV revenues. Remember, the players are (or were) capped at a percentage of the overall revenue, minus a billion of the top. The owners imply want more for themselves.

 

Yeah, Peyton Manning is wealthy, but guess what, I believe most would prefer to watch Manning at QB than Irsay. Yet while Manning is wealthy, Irsay is incredibly rich.

 

Mutli-year contracts will always apply in any business. To say otherwise is incredibly ridiculous premise.

 

I began initially favoring the owners, but the more I've reviewed and understood about all this, it only made logical and moral sense to favor the players.

 

Enjoy watching Irsay take the snaps this year......if there is a year for the NFL.

[Hplarrm]

How great. Florence, Johnson and Fitzy are practicing, while they and their fellow NFL players are all suing Ralph Wilson and his fellow owners for the right to destroy the NFL as we know it. What character! What great guys. To me, there is no "debate" here. The players are allowed to become rich because the owners spend the money to run the National Football League. End of story. The fans pay to watch the players, but the owners put the teams in the fans' cities, and that trumps it for me. Now, former players and player unions have done a good job making sure the owners have paid the players more then their fair share, and I respected those players and unions for fighting the good fight in 1982 & 1987. I also respected the players and union of today for making sure they get more then their fair share of the insane 9 Billion dollars a year the NFL now earns.

 

But this "union de-certification" crap the players pulled first in 1989, and now today, is inexcusable. It is disrespectful, hypocritical, and makes a mockery of every bit of good any union has ever done for it's members in any other walk of life. Peyton Manning, on the threshold of being paid about $25 Million dollars a year for the rest of his career, has filed suite against Jim Irsay, the owner in Indy who is ready and willing to sign that check??

 

Forcing the NFL and the owners to waste tax dollars in front of a federal judge for God knows how long, defending the very anti-trust exemption that has allowed Peyton Manning and his wealthy buddies to become rich in the first place, is arrogance run amok. What if the judge rules that the NFL can no longer exist as it has? No draft. No trades. Nothing but total across the board one year free agent contracts allowed from now on. Do the idiot players even realize this can happen? Do the idiot players hope this will happen? Can they be that stupid?

 

Yes, I believe they can be, and are that stupid.

 

This view is odd in that it does not seem to recognize that there are at least three sides to this debate, the owners, the players and the third side I am a part of the fans.

 

Are the players on our side and representing out interests?

 

No.

 

However, are the team owners on our side and representing our interests?

 

Nope.

 

What's a fan to do or root for?

 

Lets ask some questions.

 

1. Why is the NFL in court primarily today and wasting taxpayer money?

 

Directly because negotiations broke down and did not provide a solution to the dispute. However, there were only negotiations because the owners opted out of the deal they made. It simply seems contradictory to me that you seem to want to blame the players for the wasteful court battle when their position has been to simply maintain the deal that the owners and them agreed to.

 

It also seems odd to not give the owners at least equal blame for wasting tax dollars in the courts when like in most battles you need two sides agreeing in order to settle and two sides to battle. Particularly since we would not even be in court if the owners had stayed with the deal they made or agreed to the public position of the NFLPA to stick with the current deal there would be no waste.

 

2. Do the team owners have any other history of making use of taxpayer money for their benefit?

 

They sure do and its called college football. As a resident of Buffalo part of my taxdollars go to fund places like the SUNY system and UB. Particularly under past president Greiner a ton of that money went to build stadiums and practice facilities for UB to attract Division I players. One can debate the utility of these moves since a number of independent studies have found big ticket athletics do not pay for themselves at all in increased ticket sales. Thus debate is beside the point here as when one looks at the NFL versus other sports leagues.

 

In the MLB and NHL parent teams pay big bucks to maintain minor league teams directly or through contractual agreements to fund them to pay the teenagers they have signed to speculative contracts.

 

Instead, in the NFL, teams actually take the un-American step (up until decertification in collaboration with the NFLPA to not only bar teenagers from signing to sell their wares, but even barring adults until the year their age would graduate. Instead, the NFL collaborates with colleges, many of them using our tax dollars at places like UB or state school football factories like U. Nebraska to train and develop young athletes.

 

You want to talk about using taxpayer dollars for their private business you gotta start with the team owners.

 

3. In this three way debate who is the unnecessary party.

 

Football ultimately from my perspective and looking at who really provides the cash in the form of ticket and other doodad sales and primarily through providing eyeballs for the TV nets to sale beer, cars and soap to it is the fans.

 

The players are also necessary because I want to watch the best athletes at the sport compete.

 

The owners are a fifth wheel at best. I understand what you say about we should appreciate fiscal risk they took year ago, I do. However, like a spare tire I am glad they are there but really can do without seeing them. In fact, if I can minimize the space they take up so there is more room in the trunk I am happy to get rid of them and if I can get a tire which does not blow out I am happy to dispose of them properly.

 

The team owners are really an item I am happy to see us get rid of in exchange for models like the municiply owned Packers or the many alternate sources of capital out there like a Pagula who bought the Sabres, the billions of dollars sitting in corporations right now since they were not secure enough to spend and hire during the economic meltdown or even the TV networks themselves.

 

The main message to the owners which may come out from this lockout is thanks for all you did in the past, clearly the NFL team owners have made back the original investment plus a lot, but please do not let the door hit you on the way out as they are simply a little contributing middle man at this point from a fan's perspective.

[8-8 Forever?]

How great. Florence, Johnson and Fitzy are practicing, while they and their fellow NFL players are all suing Ralph Wilson and his fellow owners for the right to destroy the NFL as we know it. What character! What great guys. To me, there is no "debate" here. The players are allowed to become rich because the owners spend the money to run the National Football League. End of story. The fans pay to watch the players, but the owners put the teams in the fans' cities, and that trumps it for me. Now, former players and player unions have done a good job making sure the owners have paid the players more then their fair share, and I respected those players and unions for fighting the good fight in 1982 & 1987. I also respected the players and union of today for making sure they get more then their fair share of the insane 9 Billion dollars a year the NFL now earns.

 

But this "union de-certification" crap the players pulled first in 1989, and now today, is inexcusable. It is disrespectful, hypocritical, and makes a mockery of every bit of good any union has ever done for it's members in any other walk of life. Peyton Manning, on the threshold of being paid about $25 Million dollars a year for the rest of his career, has filed suite against Jim Irsay, the owner in Indy who is ready and willing to sign that check??

 

Forcing the NFL and the owners to waste tax dollars in front of a federal judge for God knows how long, defending the very anti-trust exemption that has allowed Peyton Manning and his wealthy buddies to become rich in the first place, is arrogance run amok. What if the judge rules that the NFL can no longer exist as it has? No draft. No trades. Nothing but total across the board one year free agent contracts allowed from now on. Do the idiot players even realize this can happen? Do the idiot players hope this will happen? Can they be that stupid?

 

Yes, I believe they can be, and are that stupid.

The day Gene Upshaw suddenly died from pancreatic cancer I knew this was probably coming. When a non player lawyer tough guy like DeMaurice Smith was hired I was certain this was coming. No matter, the teams can wait out the players indefinately.

[Kettle Creek Football]

My only issue with the league and the owners occurs when they hold cities & taxpayers hostage for new stadiums. The owners have all the leverage here, and we as fans pay the price all too willingly.

I love the Bills, the players, and even Ralph, but enough is enough!

Taxpayers should be left out of all scenarios!

[Nanker]

The day Gene Upshaw suddenly died from pancreatic cancer I knew this was probably coming. When a non player lawyer tough guy like DeMaurice Smith was hired I was certain this was coming. No matter, the teams can wait out the players indefinately.

 

+1

His strength is not derived from the game nor from a historical relationship with the League.

He's taking a hard azz lawyerly approach to getting more money and can't get beyond that.

It's no wonder the owners don't trust him. The PA's entire approach has been disingenuous. JMO.

[Original Byrd Man]

This view is odd in that it does not seem to recognize that there are at least three sides to this debate, the owners, the players and the third side I am a part of the fans.

 

Are the players on our side and representing out interests?

 

No.

 

However, are the team owners on our side and representing our interests?

 

Nope.

 

What's a fan to do or root for?

 

Lets ask some questions.

 

1. Why is the NFL in court primarily today and wasting taxpayer money?

 

Directly because negotiations broke down and did not provide a solution to the dispute. However, there were only negotiations because the owners opted out of the deal they made. It simply seems contradictory to me that you seem to want to blame the players for the wasteful court battle when their position has been to simply maintain the deal that the owners and them agreed to.

 

It also seems odd to not give the owners at least equal blame for wasting tax dollars in the courts when like in most battles you need two sides agreeing in order to settle and two sides to battle. Particularly since we would not even be in court if the owners had stayed with the deal they made or agreed to the public position of the NFLPA to stick with the current deal there would be no waste.

 

2. Do the team owners have any other history of making use of taxpayer money for their benefit?

 

They sure do and its called college football. As a resident of Buffalo part of my taxdollars go to fund places like the SUNY system and UB. Particularly under past president Greiner a ton of that money went to build stadiums and practice facilities for UB to attract Division I players. One can debate the utility of these moves since a number of independent studies have found big ticket athletics do not pay for themselves at all in increased ticket sales. Thus debate is beside the point here as when one looks at the NFL versus other sports leagues.

 

In the MLB and NHL parent teams pay big bucks to maintain minor league teams directly or through contractual agreements to fund them to pay the teenagers they have signed to speculative contracts.

 

Instead, in the NFL, teams actually take the un-American step (up until decertification in collaboration with the NFLPA to not only bar teenagers from signing to sell their wares, but even barring adults until the year their age would graduate. Instead, the NFL collaborates with colleges, many of them using our tax dollars at places like UB or state school football factories like U. Nebraska to train and develop young athletes.

 

You want to talk about using taxpayer dollars for their private business you gotta start with the team owners.

 

3. In this three way debate who is the unnecessary party.

 

Football ultimately from my perspective and looking at who really provides the cash in the form of ticket and other doodad sales and primarily through providing eyeballs for the TV nets to sale beer, cars and soap to it is the fans.

 

The players are also necessary because I want to watch the best athletes at the sport compete.

 

The owners are a fifth wheel at best. I understand what you say about we should appreciate fiscal risk they took year ago, I do. However, like a spare tire I am glad they are there but really can do without seeing them. In fact, if I can minimize the space they take up so there is more room in the trunk I am happy to get rid of them and if I can get a tire which does not blow out I am happy to dispose of them properly.

 

The team owners are really an item I am happy to see us get rid of in exchange for models like the municiply owned Packers or the many alternate sources of capital out there like a Pagula who bought the Sabres, the billions of dollars sitting in corporations right now since they were not secure enough to spend and hire during the economic meltdown or even the TV networks themselves.

 

The main message to the owners which may come out from this lockout is thanks for all you did in the past, clearly the NFL team owners have made back the original investment plus a lot, but please do not let the door hit you on the way out as they are simply a little contributing middle man at this point from a fan's perspective.

How much of their money have the players invested in the sport? $0. They want to see the books. When is the last time your boss showed you his bottom line? I'm sick of all this whining crap by the players who are making millions. The league min is over $350K Oh! those poor babies. Try working a coal mine for a year. I say bring on the replacements, because I'm sick and tired of these prima donna's. I loved the NBA. When they cancelled their season I washed my hands of them, and have not watched a single game since. If this continues I'll do the same with football. It will break my heart, but it will also save me a lot of money. Just a bitter fan who has seen enough.

[Hplarrm]

How much of their money have the players invested in the sport? $0. They want to see the books. When is the last time your boss showed you his bottom line? I'm sick of all this whining crap by the players who are making millions. The league min is over $350K Oh! those poor babies. Try working a coal mine for a year. I say bring on the replacements, because I'm sick and tired of these prima donna's. I loved the NBA. When they cancelled their season I washed my hands of them, and have not watched a single game since. If this continues I'll do the same with football. It will break my heart, but it will also save me a lot of money. Just a bitter fan who has seen enough.

I think the question that needs to be asked is who is the boss in the NFL.

 

With the lockout of 1987, the team owners clearly cleaned the clock of the NFLPA which led in a traditional ADL-CIO style by Ed Garvey. The replacement player strategy clearly forced the players to come crawling back. However, it so undermined Garvey that what I call the talented tenth of NFL athletes led by Gene Upshaw were able to link up with some smart NYC lawyers and talk the rest of the players into a decertification strategy.

 

This strategy actually forced the owners to run kicking and screaming to negotiate the CBA which really changed the owner/player employer/employee relationship into one of a partnership between owners and players for who was boss of the league. The owners still were the boss as they did things like get rid of general admission seats they had to split with the players and instead made a smaller number of premium seats they did not have to split ticket revenue with the players (for example total capacity at the Ralph dropped 5K but as they replaced regular seats with premium seats Mr. Ralph increased his take even if fewer people could come to the game.

 

The owners clearly were running the store, but in the negotiations which produced the current CBA Upshaw publicly declared that the new CBA would eliminate the designation and the cap would be set from total revenue. He also announced that the new player share MUST begin with a 6.

 

Arguably as the players ended up with a significant majority of the revenue at 60.5% the players became the boss.

 

My GUESS is that this move by the owners will actually further move this process along as the best move for the players would seem to be to in essence get replacement (actually suplumemtary as they do not want to kill the owners but simply bring competition so they can get even more $ and members from establishing a new competing league.

 

I think it is a mistake to simply think of the owners as bosses, really all they are is a capital source which was essential at the beginning of the league but really has multiple replacement sources right now.