BarleyNY

Wow! That was a very surprising read. I would not have thought a LEO would take a guilty upon accusation and until proven innocent approach. No corroborating evidence other than similar accusations (at least in the cases that officer investigated) is big.

Robby Anderson being floated in trade for Mayfield. I don’t know which side that is coming from though. Carolina just restructured his contract so that would mean the Browns would have to eat a lot more of Mayfield’s contract.

There also were rumors that when they were trying to trade for Watson, the Phins offered to settle the cases against him for $100k each.

That is a great question. The Browns will still need him to restructure his contract to eat some of his salary so they don’t want to escalate the situation too far. They also don’t want him to get injured at the facility. Mayfield might actually want to come to TC though - even if excused - and the Browns really can’t prevent him from doing so as long as he’s on the team. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Baker can’t hold out. If he did, the Browns would just void his contract. They’d love for that to be the outcome, but I can’t see Mayfield giving up $18.9M to become a free agent. I don’t see him ever playing for the Browns again, but he can’t hold out.

Well stated. I’d highlight the escrow comment. Owners with cash to burn are the ones that can pay upfront cash or otherwise guarantee salary (that must be put into escrow at time of guarantee) have a big advantage over other owners when signing players, especially high dollar free agents. The other important point is the part about every dollar being accounted for. It’s accounting. Cap hits can get manipulated and moved around within the rules, but the salary cap is still a restriction.

Now who are Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi going to use as a mouthpiece?

I agree with him that the Bills and Bills fans shouldn’t waste much time thinking about the irrelevant Pats.

https://www.buffalobills.com/team/alumni/wall-of-fame Per the Bills the criteria is: The Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame was created in 1980 to honor former players, administrators and coaches who have played significant roles in the team's history. To be eligible for induction, an individual must have played with the Bills for at least three years and be retired from professional football. Also eligible are other individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the Bills, including administrators and coaches. Selections are made by a distinguished panel composed of club personnel and media members. Seems to me like he doesn’t clear the “played significant roles in the team’s history” bar. Maybe he can assume a broadcasting or administrative role and get there. Personally, I’d love to see hI’m give the booth a shot.

Story from 2000. My uncle, who lives in the Cleveland area, is talking to his neighbor who didn’t know a lot about football. He tells him he was just at a party that weekend and talked most of the night about hunting and fishing with the nicest guy. Really big dude named Romeo. Football never came up except he said he worked for the Browns. My uncle said he laughed and told him that the guy was the Browns new Defensive Coordinator.

Yes. They’re trying to control for talent by using Pythagorean wins. While that metric is more predictive than W-L records, I don’t much care for its use here. Too much else at play as others have mentioned. I think PFF does a good job at some things, but this one is pretty poor.

Today

I don’t know what the going suspension is for making a masseuse cry. But seriously, the NFL doesn’t have to consider things like whether or not Watson’s actions constitute sexual assault. They just need to decide whether or not his actions violated the NFL’s personal conduct policy - and that’s a much lower bar. So let’s consider a plausible scenario that gives Watson the benefit of some doubt. He was getting massages from masseuses and from non-masseuses. He has admitted to asking many of them for sex of one kind or another. And he’s done that a lot. I’m not sure if he admitted to exposing himself, but let’s say he has or at least that we believe he did. Now let’s say we believe that he didn’t intentionally touch any of them with his naughty bits (not sure about that) and that he didn’t coerce anyone into anything (highly unlikely IMO). Isn’t that still plenty to get him suspended? The only real problem for the NFL in handing down punishment to Watson is Robert Kraft’s frequent visits to his favorite Florida massage parlor. I’m sure the NFL is going to work overtime to tamp down any mention of that and the hypocrisy of handing down zero punishment to him. But that’s the world we live in.

That’s fair. You’d think they’d want to minimize it and not add fuel to the fire though. But maybe they already have a good idea of what it’s going to be. I can see the league announcing the suspension on 7/1 so it gets buried over the holiday weekend.

Speaking of lawyer’s strategies: while that might be true from a criminal standpoint, how does that admission not invite suspension from the league?

You think this woman got some new information from the HBO special? I didn’t see it, but I know Watson didn’t do an interview for it. So it’s kinda odd how - even though he wasn’t on it - she suddenly felt he had no remorse. Also it’s worth noting that Buzbee has been saying for weeks that there could be more cases. The timing and narrative are completely strategic. Whether or not the 23rd accuser actually felt the way that has been stated is immaterial. This is how the game is played.

This is what I meant by not being naive. Yes, of course, the narrative has to be something like that. What else are they going to say? Incidentally, what’s “minimum compensation”? $1 and an apology? I suspect it’s a bit more than that. More optics. Again, this is completely independent of the legitimacy of the suit. This is strategy and pressure.

Let’s not be naive. The timing of the filing of the last two suits was planned by Buzbee. The purpose was to keep the suits in the news. By doing so it keeps pressure on Watson to settle the cases, which is his overarching goal. Please note that I am not speaking to the legitimacy of any of the cases, I’m just pointing out the lawyer’s strategy.

I think you’re confused about what’s actually happening. Rescinding the antitrust exemption is definitely something congress can chose to do.

I’m sure the Browns would be happy to void Baker’s contract today if they could. But why would Baker give up $18.9M?

The simple answer to your question about how this would work is to watch the current Congressional Oversight Committee proceedings. That’s how this is supposed to work. Whether or not the US Congress chooses to - or is capable of - doing its job is another matter. This is still their job, whether or not they chose to do it.

His contract would toll. The Browns probably could void his contract as well, but I’m not 100 on that.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/12/03/congress-could-really-hurt-the-nfl-if-it-wants-to/ Specifically Congress has exempted the NFL from antitrust (aka anti-monopoly) laws where broadcasting revenues are concerned. That is why the NFL can collectively bargain for those rather than each individual team having to do so independently. The NFLPA and CBA also enable otherwise illegally monopolistic practices such as the draft, free agency restrictions, roster limits, salary cap, revenue sharing, minimum player age, schedule coordination, etc. This all allows the NFL to act as one organization rather than 32 separate ones. In fact, it even allows the NFL to determine the number of teams. In a free market system new ones could be formed by anyone just like in any other industry.

I agree that owners don’t want to hold each other accountable because of their own skeletons, but I think Snyder crossed the one line that’ll do him in - he stole from other owners. How stupid was that?

The NFL operates as a legal monopoly so Congressional oversight is mandatory. It is odd to think that overseeing the NFL is part of Congress’s job, but it is