GreggTX Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 There is some truth to this because Ralph wasn't a billionaire, but during the 90's we had one of the most expensive rosters in the NFL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 1 hour ago, Lurker said: Here are a couple of tidbits on Marv: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/03/05/Bills-give-Levy-contract-extension/2146668149200/ "Levy, 62, had two seasons remaining on a contract he signed in 1989, and estimates are that his annual salary increased from $300,000 to about $500,000." http://buffalonews.com/1992/07/08/bills-11th-in-profits-for-1989-financial-data-disclosed-at-trial/ "Other interesting tidbits from the financial statements were the 1990 salaries of Bills head coach Marv Levy ($322,917) and Polian ($296,000). It is known that both have received substantial pay increases since. Thanks to the Bills' Super Bowl appearances the past two seasons, Levy now receives about $700,000 from the team, while Polian is above $500,000. Jimmy Johnson of Dallas was the NFL's top-paid head coach two years ago at $1.4 million, while Philadelphia's Buddy Ryan was at the bottom of the list at $298,000." Yes, and Levy's new deal in '91 put him in the upper echelon of coaching salaries at the time. Look, I don't want to rehash every single nuance of Ralph's spending here. But the Sullivans of the world need to understand that they need to include the exceptions to their narrative when it comes to Mr. Wilson being "cheap" when there are several examples of him making some of his coaches and players among the highest paid in the league for their positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloRush Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 3 minutes ago, K-9 said: Yes, and Levy's new deal in '91 put him in the upper echelon of coaching salaries at the time. Look, I don't want to rehash every single nuance of Ralph's spending here. But the Sullivans of the world need to understand that they need to include the exceptions to their narrative when it comes to Mr. Wilson being "cheap" when there are several examples of him making some of his coaches and players among the highest paid in the league for their positions. Again - Sullivan is more referring to the many recent times when Ralph chose to cheap out on GM and coach when there were openings. Not situations like extending Levy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yav Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 This is just disgusting. The man is dead, let him Rest In Peace, it’s time to leave the past where it belongs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victory Formation Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Great person, great businessman, just not a great football mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boca BIlls Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 (edited) 6 hours ago, 4merper4mer said: He kept the team in Buffalo and poison pilled the lease so drunk Kraft wouldn't notice. He operated from low liquidity compared to the Jones's andMcNairs of the world. He gave $900M to charity upon his death. Cheap. Right. Sullivan is a low life. Cheap when it came to important FOOTBALL decisions. This talk isnt about the Ralph outside of that. Edited March 30, 2018 by Boca BIlls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DriveFor1Outta5 Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 I’m not about to criticize Ralph for anything. He kept the team in town, and he’ll always be paramount in Bills history. Get back to me when the Pegula’s bring home a title. Ralph’s teams were among some of the worst in the league, but he also oversaw the greatest run in NFL history. Simply throwing around money is just one step of the equation for being a great NFL owner. Sometimes throwing around money just leaves you with Charles Clay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smuvtalker Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 3 hours ago, BuffaloRush said: Thanks for the comment! I usually catch a lot of flack for my opinion so it’s nice to find someone that enjoyed the post. Ralph is complicated. On one hand you had to admire his generosity to the community, but on the other hand he really wasn’t a very good owner from a football perspective and made lots of questionable decisions. I have definitely had to grow some thicker skin being a member of TBD lol, and i honestly think it is a good thing. Having joined in 2005, I really only starting contributing the last 3 or 4 years. This board is full of some extremely intelligent, well-informed, and some SUPER-opinionated members. I respect everyone's opinion and viewpoints, and enjoy having discussions and dialogue where our views differ, and welcome constructive criticism. However, I have a real problem with the posters that are super opinionated, and if you don't share their same opinion, they can get downright nasty. It has never happened to me, but I've seen plenty of posters get absolutely LAMBASTED on here for stating their opinions. I can see why so many members can be hesitant to share their views on here. But to me it's helped me to grow as a person and a commenter. And again props to you for starting this topic. I will ALWAYS be eternally grateful to Mr. Wilson for giving us the Buffalo Bills. I have been a loyal fan since I was six years old, when I could actively remember back then that our QB was Joe Ferguson, our RB was Joe Cribbs, one of our WRs was Jerry Butler. I couldnt imagine ever loving and being so passionate about another team, and my love for the Bills and my love for the city of Buffalo are inseparable, a true package deal. And again it all starts with the great Mr. Wilson. Funny thing is that my wife is from New Orleans, and I was a big Brees fan when he was at Purdue, so it was easy to adopt the Saints as my 2nd favorite team, especially with them being in the NFC. I follow the Saints closely, and the year they went to the Super Bowl, we rooted them on down in the big easy, and I second-lined down on Canal St with thousands of others, and when they won we cheered and hooted and hollered. But deep down, in my gut, all could really feel was jealousy. Because i wanted to have that feeling for my Bills. And I don't think that for a second that Ralph couldn't have done things different, from a financial perspective, that might have brought a Lombardi trophy to Buffalo. So that is why I agree with you, that Ralph WAS complicated. And, this may or may not get an apple shoved in my mouth and a gigantic skewer shoved up my a$$ and placed in a pit and roasted, but I think it is LAZY and ignorant to think that just because Ralph Wilson founded the Buffalo Bills that he is above any criticism whatsoever, and anyone who does is a scumbag POS who should be burned at the stake. JMO.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridgewaycynic2013 Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 6 hours ago, baskin said: Polian left after a heated argument about Ralph not wanting to pay an injury settlement to Jamie Mueller...Polian said it would be impossible to attract free agents if bills cheaped out...argument...Polian dropped C word regarding Ralph's daughter...history is made... Ralph's daughter was 'cheap' too?! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoTier Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 6 hours ago, BuffaloRush said: It's all about context - he said that Ralph was cheap when it came to paying management and many fans and journalists will agree. He never said he was cheap when it came to charity etc. Please don't twist his words into something other than the original point. Exactly this. Ralph Wilson ran his team as a business with the goal of making money. Like many business owners, he watched his bottom closely. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a generous philanthropist in the tradition of other tough businessmen like John D Rockefeller or Henry Ford. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDingus Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 6 hours ago, PolishDave said: It's very classy insulting dead people who did great things for their community during their lifetimes. So because they're dead, that negates all criticism for all eternity? Every public figure gets criticism, even after death, yet suddenly it's off limits for Ralph Wilson? Man, so many Presidents would love to have those rules! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albwan Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 The irony is, if he was being cheap it was brilliant... look at all the diehard bills fans and they haven't won crap in forever. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RochesterRob Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 44 minutes ago, NewDayBills said: Great person, great businessman, just not a great football mind. I don't know about that as far as not having a great football mind. Ralph's biggest problem was being a product of an earlier time in the professional sports business. Where teams were not run by multi-billionaire owners who considered the team a toy that happened to appreciate in value. The NFL's revenue stream has steadily grown over the past few decades but that is hindsight versus being an owner trying to anticipate the future from the 1960's forward in time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoTier Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 6 hours ago, C.Biscuit97 said: Um, what about the SB years when there was no cap? I was super young but I don’t think Kelly, Bruce, Thurman, Reed, etc were cheap. Well, let's see ... OJ Simpson held out for months as a rookie. Tom Cousineau, one of the Bills #1 draft picks, preferred to play in the CFL rather than sign for the length of his career with the Bills. Jim Kelly chose to play in the USFL rather than sign with the Bills, and only signed with the Bills after the USFL went belly up. Another first round pick, LB Tom Ruud, also held out for months. Oh, yeah, and in the era of pre-unrestriced free agency as we know it today, even the best players were cheap, especially compared to the owners' profit. It took strikes in 1974 and 1982 as well as a lock out by the owners in 2011 in order for ordinary players to get better wages and benefits, and numerous court challenges that culminated in modern unrestricted free agency in 1992 that enabled the best players to have big pay days. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fadingpain Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 7 hours ago, BuffaloRush said: Scroll to the 35 minute mark http://buffalonews.com/2018/03/21/tim-graham-show-a-conversation-about-interviewing-o-j-simpson/ Again another cheap plug for the Tim Graham show. This show contains audio excerpts from his interview with OJ Simpson. One clip features OJ saying that Ralph wasn't interested in winning in Buffalo because it would mean he'd have to give players raises. He later claimed that once he made his money from the NFL, he changed his mind around the time that Polian was running things. Jerry Sullivan though says that Ralph Wilson was always a cheap owner. While he spent money on players during the salary cap era, he was notoriously frugal when it came to coaches and general managers. Sully even claimed that he called Ralph a "cheapskate" in one article and he refused to talk to him again. LOL. Sully said that Ralph didn't believe any coach or GM was smarter than his and so he didn't believe in paying them. Graham said that Ralph would pay people who "filled seats," like OJ and the Electric Company. This also would account for Ralph's alleged fondness for drafting running backs very high in the draft - to fill seats. This is what makes Ralph Wilson somewhat complicated. On one hand, you have to admire him bringing a team to Buffalo and keeping in the area. While there is some debate, at worst, Ralph made a possible move after his death, a little more challenging than what it could have been. There's also the charitable aspect that he's made to the community and the fact the he seemed like a genuine person. For that I admire him. But what Sully says is fairly spot on for the majority of Ralph's career - with the exception on Tom Donahoe in 2001. He gave him some pretty money and more importantly control of the organization. Things went horribly wrong both from a football and administration standpoint and after Donahoe's firing, it was back to cheap coaches and GM's that Ralph felt "safe" with. In my opinion, this perhaps was the biggest reason for the Bills 17 year drought. Ralph was reluctant to give the money and power to competent people to run football operations. In researching this topic, I came across a great article in Pro Football talk from 7 years ago which further supports what Sully was saying: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/01/01/bills-decision-to-hire-nix-draws-criticism/ “The Buffalo hire is a joke and a slap in the face to all hard working people in the NFL,” the source said. “The Bills have not been to the playoffs in over 10 years and that run will continue for years to come. The owner has made three hires in a row that shows he only cares about mediocrity. “Bills fans can rest assured that, a year from now, two years from now, and three and four years from now, the team will still be in last place in the AFC East. The Jets, Patriots, and Dolphins continue to make moves to get better while the Bills just tread water. There are good people who were very interested in that job, like Dave Gettelman, Scott Studwell and Doug Whaley that never got a chance. All those guys could have helped that team. The best hope for Bills fans is that the owner decides to sell the team and then someone who cares about winning takes over and brings in qualified people.” Ouch! Ironically everything in this article pretty much came to fruition. Again, Wilson is a complicated figure. You love what he did from a humanistic standpoint - but no so much from a football standpoint. A while ago someone posted a thread here asking what SINGLE move would you make if you could go back in time and make the move, so as to improve the team over the last 20 years or whatever. A lot of people were saying things like "Draft Tom Brady" or "Hire Bill Belichick as the coach" etc. I said "Have the team sold and bought by a better owner." That would have been by far the single most beneficial/impactful event in this franchise's history, at least in the last 20 years. I said for years and years that the mediocrity would continue until ownership changed, and so did lots of other Bills fans. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4merper4mer Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 6 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said: You are very naive, son. What he operated with was zero debt............not "low liquidity". Jones and Kraft were in serious debt after buying their franchises and thus motivated to take money risks aka spend money to make money. Ralph did not believe in spending money to make money like his fellow owners..........he wanted the money to just keep flowing at him without effort. It really became a problem after the team fell out of competitiveness when Butler left. Then he started stacking cheez for his family exit strategy at the expense of competing. Do you even like the Bills? Because I haven't read anything positive from you in maybe....ever. Ralph bought the Bills for what? $40k? He was relatively wealthy but not NFL owner wealthy. He did have options such as selling shares or leveraging through debt but he chose otherwise. That is a business decision. It isn't "cheap". His decisions resulted in 900m to charity and his team staying put. Had he leveraged the team, who knows how things might have turned out? Would he have been able to sneak the lease past his lender said/partners before it even got to drunk Krafts desk? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmy10 Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 7 hours ago, BuffaloRush said: So the fact that he put out an inferior product for 2 years is justifiable? "Justifiable"? No clue. "Understandable"? Maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Lightning Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 Jerry who? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadLandsMeanie Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 (edited) The Buffalo News has jumped the shark. That being said, here is a poem by me! It is called "OJ" OJ Through blood and pain and bone and gristle, the Buffalo News gives his butt a kissle. Edited March 31, 2018 by BadLandsMeanie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RochesterRob Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 1 hour ago, Fadingpain said: A while ago someone posted a thread here asking what SINGLE move would you make if you could go back in time and make the move, so as to improve the team over the last 20 years or whatever. A lot of people were saying things like "Draft Tom Brady" or "Hire Bill Belichick as the coach" etc. I said "Have the team sold and bought by a better owner." That would have been by far the single most beneficial/impactful event in this franchise's history, at least in the last 20 years. I said for years and years that the mediocrity would continue until ownership changed, and so did lots of other Bills fans. This is assuming that this alternate owner would have kept the team in Buffalo especially if you went back 25 years. Ralph may have been "business first" in a lot of respects but he had an affinity for Buffalo the way many people have for their first house even though the current house may be nicer, better built, and more energy efficient than that first home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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