ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

Here's how it worked under the recently expired 2006 CBA - - don't know if it will be any different under the 2011 CBA but have no reason to think it has changed: http://www.askthecommish.com/salarycap/faq.asp

The 99% requirement applies to combined league-wide cash spending on player compensation during the 2011 league year - - there is absolutely NO floor amount of cash that any individual team must spend in 2011. Here's an article (with relevant excerpt) that Numark recently posted, but it was apparently little noticed during the flurry of free agency postings because the thread got closed: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/07/30/per-team-spending-minimum-doesnt-apply-until-2013/ The above analysis of audiotaped comments by the Ravens president is consistent with the previously posted text of a powerpoint presentation given by the NFLPA to player agents. Here's a link and the relevant excerpt: http://bizoffootball.com/index.php?view=article&catid=54%3Anfl-labor-news&id=857%3Atext-of-brief-of-new-nfl-cba-to-player-agents&format=pdf&option=com_content&Itemid=79

It's hard to stretch in the NFL!

See this thread (in particular post #14): http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/132196-reminder-from-the-professor/page__pid__2198981#entry2198981

I'm temporarily out of video clips, but I tend to think of Gailey as the mad scientist tinkering with Brad Smith as the next "Slash" to create a never before seen offense. The Bills offense will be ALIVE! Maybe Littman should play Igor (Marty Feldman with a shifting back hump) while he's counting Ralph's money.

I figured you were just setting up the blind man video clip for me, but it was still too funny to pass up. One of my favorite comedies of all time. When did you know it would come to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWrCf7rAytc Go Bills! Go Frankenstein!

I think of our DC George Edwards (who starts Kelsay at OLB) as inviting Barnett (a real monster when healthy who lets his play do the talking) back to Edwards' house for some soup, some wine, a cigar and an espresso to seal the deal after the dinner at JoJo's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd91A3Qcfkw Go Bills!

A riot is an ugly thing, but I think it is just about time that we had one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XazOmi4yIbU&NR=1

What I find funny is that Captain Checkdown is going to a team run by an owner who is famous both for meddling on game day and for being in love with the vertical passing game. Al Davis doesn't get much respect these days, but maybe this is proof that he really has lost it.

What makes you think he'd catch it?

First, thanks for the info. Second, for comparison purposes, I found a 1996 study (15 years ago) that estimated that the Bills had a $111.5 million gross economic impact on the local community in 1996. That 1996 study was done at a time when possible renovation of Ralph Wilson Stadium was being debated, so it could be a biased position paper of sorts. On the other hand, you would expect the gross economic impact of any NFL team to have grown significantly over the last 15 years, given the increased overall popularity of the NFL during that time. I don't know if the 1996 study was the source of the Packer VP's Buffalo number - - seems unlikely because it's so old. But if it WAS the source, you would need to use a "Buffalo community" population figure of 3.28 million people to arrive at the $34/person Buffalo figure. I'm no expert on Green Bay, but it doesn't seem fair to me use 250,000 people to calculate a "Packer impact" number while using 3.28 million people to calculate a "Bills impact" number. Finally, it still seems odd to me that the Packer VP presumably had easy access to community impact numbers for OTHER NFL cities. It seems like the figures may have been in something put out by the league office, because it seems unlikely that the Packer VP would have much incentive to look up or calculate such numbers on his own initiative. Do you happen to know if that Packer VP sits on any NFL committees? It might help us figure out where the Buffalo $34 number came from. http://www.ppgbuffalo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/sports-subsidies-issue-fact-sheet-final.pdf

Upon reflection, I wondered if the NFL commissioned some sort of league-wide study that they could use to try to get communities to help fund stadium construction and/or improvements. Doing a few google searches to see if I can find some horsespit study that matches the Packer VP's comments. Nothing yet, but I did find some horsespit being passed off as economic research. I did not see a date on this horsespit, but it cites a 2006 study by others, so it can't be too old. http://web.mst.edu/~davismc/winning%20proposition%20revised.pdf

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/126369858.html I tend to be a numbers guy, but I'm clueless on this one. The referenced shareholders' meeting was two days ago. Anybody got any ideas on how the Packers VP comes up with these numbers? I suppose a small population like Green Bay has would tend to make a team's "economic impact per person" higher, but there must be more to it than that. Dallas and San Diego have much bigger populations than Buffalo, but both teams are cited as having a much greater "econmic impact per person" on their communities than the Bills do. I'm stumped.

Personally, I've long advocated not only the use of talent from the Southeast, but finding it early: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/130198-reorganizing-the-scouting-department/page__hl__%2Bchannel+%2Bbuddy

I realize that the Jets went farther in the playoffs recently, but NE has consistently had the best AFC East regular season record during the Brady era. I don't need to remind anybody here how NE has owned us. So if I'm Nix/Gailey, I'm gonna set my roster to give me the best chance to beat NE. NE is a pass-first team. IIRC, Moats and Batten are both from small schools, and were drafted one round apart. While Moats did display some pass rush ability last year at OLB, he often lost containment on outside running plays (just like Kelsay). Our run defense was so porous last year that teams never had to throw against us much - - do we really know if Moats can cover anybody? When he wasn't pass rushing, I thought Moats looked slow. Moats looked far better at OLB late in the season than he did at ILB early, but maybe that's just because as a player from a small college, the pro game finally slowed down for him later in the season. There must have been some reason why the Bills initially projected Moats at ILB when he was drafted, even though he played poorly there in pre-season last year. While Batten got hurt early last year, maybe the coaches saw enough of him to decide that Batten had higher overall upside at OLB when you evaluate more than just pass rush ability. With Dareus on board and Troup/Carrington expected to contribute more in their second year, maybe the run D will improve enough so that we can stop the desperate shuffling of personnel and schemes to stop the run, and focus instead on shutting down the NE passing offense. Seems to me like our coaches didn't have much to do during the lockout except scheme for the upcoming season. If they're any good, you would think they spent some time trying to figure out how to create the best match-ups against our better division rivals. Maybe Moats will be the new Keith Ellison jack-of-all-trades reserve LB, and Batten will be better at OLB than we think. I'm trying to find a silver lining in our LB situation. Let's hope that teams have to test our pass defense this year to move the chains!

I don't know exactly how the numbers work out, but I think you may need to factor in the idea that under the new 2011 CBA, players with only four years of accrued service become unrestricted free agents when their contracts expire. Under the old 2006 CBA, there were special rules for the post opt-out, uncapped 2010 year that required a player to have 6 years of accrued service to become an unrestricted free agent when his contract expired. Not absolutely sure, but I think that impacted player rights as follows: If a rookie signed a four year contract in say the summer of 2006. and played under it for the 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 seasons, I think he didn't hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent when the 2009 season ended. So even if the guy was an elite performer, there was no open market for his 2010 services. Maybe he signs a long term, multi-year extension with his then current team for the 2010 season and beyond without other offers to drive up his price (the NFLPA filed a suit, which will be dropped if the 2011 CBA is ratified by the reconstituted NFLPA by 8/4/11, alleging that teams colluded to keep the price down for restricted free agents' services), or maybe he prefers a short-term one-year deal for the 2010 season that now allows him to be an unrestricted free agent for the 2011 season. Point is, although I don't know exactly how many, there probably are at least a few extra guys that hit the unrestricted free agent market this week, as compared to the average NFL year. Any signing bonuses paid in 2011 to such "extra" free agents will count, in their entirety, against the "league wide" requirement that teams collectively spend total cash of at least 99% of [$120,375,000 x 32] on player salaries and bonuses for the 2011 season. As far as I know, there is no requirement that the Bills, or any other individual team, must spend any amount at all for the 2011 season - - the only "floor" requirement for 2011 appears to be that the combined total of all league-wide cash spent on player salaries and bonuses must be at least 99% of [$120,375,000 x 32] in 2011. ($120,375,000) x (0.99) = $119,171,250 So for every dollar of actual cash above $119,171,250 that any team spends on player salaries and bonuses in 2011, some other team can spend a dollar less. It also appears that each team, at its option, can spend $3 million ABOVE the $120,375,000 cap in 2011, so long as they spend that money in certain ways on veteran players with at least five years of accrued service. So if any team chooses to spend that extra $3 million in 2011, some other team could spend $3 million less than $119,171,250 in actual player cash for the 2011 season. The new 2011 CBA also includes some sort of 1.5% credit for actual stadium spending by any team, but I haven't found any explanatory details so I'm not sure how that works. The above analysis is based on information from the link below, which purports to be the text of a July 25, 2011 power point presentation made by the NFLPA to player agents. It summarizes the main deal points of the new 2011 CBA - - I've included a short excerpt. http://bizoffootball.com/index.php?view=article&catid=54%3Anfl-labor-news&id=857%3Atext-of-brief-of-new-nfl-cba-to-player-agents&format=pdf&option=com_content&Itemid=79

I don't follow the Cowboys, so I don't claim to know Jerry Jones' current thinking. He must have voted for the currently proposed new CBA, but in 2009 he made some fairly strong anti-supplemental revenue sharing statements. http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2009/09/Issue-244/Leagues-Governing-Bodies/Jones-Says-NFL-Revenue-Sharing-Will-End-When-CBA-Expires.aspx

Been off the grid for a few days - - here's my take on the matter: Your instincts seem consistent with what the publicly available 2006 version of the NFL Constitution & Bylaws says about the manner in which a membership in the league (i.e., an ownership interest in a team) can be transferred. Maybe Ralph has never said who the team will be sold to when he dies because he knows that the only way he can control who becomes the next owner of the Bills after his death is to leave his controlling interest in the team to a member of his "immediate family," as that phrase is defined in the NFL Bylaws. He stated in 2007 that the team will be sold after he dies - - so unless he has changed his mind, he simply doesn't control who the next owner of the Buffalo Bills will be. If anyone thinks that can't possibly be true, you need to read the NFL Constitution and Bylaw language quoted below. Unless you have some reason to believe that the relevant provision of the NFL Constitution & Bylaws has been amended since 2006, the following language controls all transfers of team ownership during Ralph's lifetime OR after his death - - whether any of us or even Ralph likes it: http://static.nfl.co...ers/pdf/co_.pdf [see Article III, section 3.5("Transfer of Membership"), specifically at pages 8/292 through 9/292] The above language doesn't necessarily mean the team will be moved after Ralph dies, but it does mean that the other 31 NFL owners would control who becomes the next owner of the Buffalo Bills if (1) Ralph still owns the controlling interest in the team when he dies, and (2) Ralph does not leave his controlling interest in the team to an immediate family member.

Under the old 2006 CBA, in years prior to 2010 (which was uncapped), all teams had the same ceiling on what they could spend on player payroll. Poor teams could choose to spend the slightly smaller floor amount. Although I don't remember the exact number, the floor was a pretty high percentsge of the ceiling for any given year. It is my understanding that you are absolutely correct about the long term leveling effect of many salary cap provisions - - with the exception of the small discrepancy noted above between floor and ceiling, teams that paid big signing bonuses that resulted in spending actual cash above the cap ceiling in a given year invariably had some of that spending count against the cap ceiling in a future year. One thing to keep in mind is that the salary cap has ZERO impact on what aa team spends for coaches, staff, workout facilities, etc. Its debatable just how much impact spending more for the current "hot" coach has on long term winning percentage, but I can see how it could have some impact. So wealthy teams have a slight advantage because of their non-player employees if they hire the best possible non-players. I also think that a team that spends big $$ to have first class training facilities can have an impact on the team's ability to attract the best free agents. That is certsinly debatable as well, but I recall seeing interviews with Dallas Mavericks NBA players who signed with Dallas as free agents after Mark Cuban bought the team. He made a concerted effort to provide perks to the players and it really did impact the decisions of some of the free agents who signed with the team. The cost of those perks was a very small percentage of Cuban's total cost of operating the team, but word got around that Cuban treated his players well, and the talent came. Those are about the only things I can think of where a wealthier team could use its $$ to create an on-the-field advantage over a poorer team under the 2006 CBA. Those advantages were small enough that poorer teams could overcome them and still win on the field. Just my 2 cents.

I just knew there was a pony in there somewhere, and if I searched long enough I'd find it.

It will be interesting to see if the anticipated global settlement of all disputes between the NFL and the players results in the extension of the Minnesota federal court's oversight of their collective bargaining relationship (via extension of the SSA). The 2006 CBA is VERY long, but based on a few key word searches I tried, it does not appear to contain language identical to the SSA language that Judge Doty relied upon when making his ruling in the TV network contract case - - could be there though, because my search was kind of hit-or-miss. The NFL wants to get out from under the thumb of the Minnnesota federal court. When the NFL filed its first amended unfair labor practices complaint against the NFLPA with the NLRB on March 11th, it specifically charged that the union comitted an unfair labor practice by, among other things, conditioning contract proposals on an extension of the SSA to allow continued oversight of the bargaining relationship by that court. http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/nfl/ca8_live.11.cv.1898.3781689.15.pdf If the NFL succeeds in escaping Minnesota federal court oversight of the anticipated new CBA, the NFLPA may not have the same type of contractual language in its favor in the future, and might wind up in some other trial court or in front of an arbitrator in any future dispute with the NFL. The parties' rights under the new CBA might be independent of the old SSA language - - it all depends on the exact terms of the new CBA.

Are you under the impression that the nonstatutory antitrust law exemption applies (i) only to business conduct authorized by the collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") between the NFL and the NFLPA, but (ii) not to business conduct authorized by the CBA between Ford Motor Company and the UAW? Because if it applies to both situations, then the US auto business is based just as much on a "social compact" (to use your term), and is just as much a "socialist enterprise" (to again use your term) as the US football business. If you dislike the whole idea of favoring labor laws over antitrust laws when the two are in conflict, that's arguably rational (even though it's not current US law), but the idea that the courts apply one set of legal concepts to football CBAs and a different set of legal concepts to auto industry CBAs seems like a flawed premise to me. Wish I could find my vacuosity meter . . . I can never find the thing when I need it!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/07/la-downtown-nfl-stadium-city-hall.html New LA stadium is far from being approved, but even if it is: "AEG is aiming to have the stadium ready for the 2016 NFL season ..." When the new CBA gets signed, isn't it about time for the Bills and Erie County to start negotiating another extension of the stadium lease? Sure would be nice if it tied the Bills to Buffalo for a while, and had a bigger "buy-out" clause than the current one.

I'm an anonymous voice on the Inter-web making no claim to any particular education or experience, but I've seen the 2006 CBA. Here's a copy: http://images.nflplayers.com/mediaResources/files/PDFs/General/NFL%20COLLECTIVE%20BARGAINING%20AGREEMENT%202006%20-%202012.pdf Judge Doty actually decided the "network TV case" based on language in a settlement agreement made between the players and the NFL that was entered a long time ago (and has been amended several times since then) in a case called White v. NFL, over which the court retained jurisdiction. In a March 1, 2011 opinion, Judge Doty referred to that settlement agreement by the acronym "SSA." Here's Judge Doty's opinion: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/minnesota/mndce/4:1992cv00906/57169/675/ You can read the entire opinion to see the reasoning for his decision in favor of the players, but here's the contractual SSA language at issue in the dispute (that Judge Doty concluded was breached by the owners): Judge Doty reached exactly the opposite conclusion from the Special Master who first heard this particular dispute. My brother Darryl thinks that means the issue wasn't entirely clear cut for either side.

Actually, although it was a while ago (2007), there is something on the record. See post #18 at: http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/131497-john-wawrow-wr-donald-jones-on-coach-sal/ Unless Ralph leaves the team to a member of his "immediate family" (as that term is defined in the NFL Bylaws), the other NFL owners control who gets the team after Ralph passes.