MadBuffaloDisease

The knock, or should I say knocks, on Davis were that he was believed to not be as fast as UM claimed, and most believed he was no taller than 6'1". He was always considered the top TE, but those things were what were going to push him down BECAUSE some people focus on the combine numbers too much. Well when he showed up to the combines at almost 6'4" and 253#, did ALL the drills and caught the ball well, then ran that blistering time, it cemented what most knew all along: Davis SHOULD be a great pro prospect.

Uh Kelly, you DO know that the Bills only play ONE game against the Pats in a given year, right? So your example only HOLDS for 1 game a year. There is an over 2-fold discrepancy in ticket revenue over the course of a season.

I'd counter that Thomas has been living off his rep from that game as a rookie against Favre and the Packers. And since then he's missed a TON of time with an injury (he had microfracture on his knee, right?), and probably won't ever be as good as we hoped he would.

Like I said Kelly, I doubt Snyder and Jones are afraid of competition. In fact I'd say they THRIVE on it.

So, Huff and Davis won't be there at #8, but in your mock above, Huff isn't selected.

Naw, we like the free ride.

Commercials can't be, but a short film like this can be nominated.

Ack. You caught me before I could delete it. I got the joke just PAST midway (arrrgggghhhh!) through the movie. There IS no "family learning channel" or "Johnson & Mills."

Then again, DeMulling sucked for the Lions last year and was ultimately benched.

Vic Carucci said that the Bills will ALWAYS be mentioned on the "short list" of teams moving to L.A., but won't ever move. The sooner it gets filled, the better!

I'm not as generous as you, Kelly. I think the big boys knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they drew up the proposals, and they had months to years to think about them. The CBA as it is was cobbled-together from several proposals, not drawn-up from scratch. But whether or not you believe they were out to screw the Bills, I'm glad that Ralphie fired a pre-emptive strike and got the politicos involved. Now he just needs to sell the naming rights and jack-up prices!

I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. With the 1st pick, the Bills take Justice, maybe being able to trade down a little. Then in the 2nd, they take a DT, and in the 3rd a S. Or they could use one of their 2-3rd rounders (or another pick from a trade down in the 1st round) and move up a round.

I think we agree it's a SMALL part of the issue. But again, $2M in a drop in the bucket of a potentially MUCH larger loss of revenue, which is what he's arguing over. And I agree he SHOULD sell the naming rights and believe he will. But outside of that and jacking-up prices for Bills games, which won't go over well with the fans, there's not much else he CAN do to generate revenue.

Again Kelly, the $2M he might get isn't the issue. It helps a little (for example, it would cover Price's bonus), but it's a drop in the bucket as I said. And IF Ralph were so interested in making money more than anything, he would have sold the naming rights YEARS ago (i.e. back in 1998, when Rich's contract ended). I think he a) didn't like the idea of the stadium having a corporate name, and b) didn't think it was right to pocket money for naming a stadium HE did not own. But hey, now it's looking like he's being FORCED to do it, so he can say "look, it's not MY idea," while pocketing the money.

No one is above the law.

I'm sure this didn't come out of the blue, and that RW knew what was being bandied-about. Better to come off like a "whiny B word" and pre-emptively save yourself, than say nothing and get screwed later.

I see what you're getting at. And the new owners DO have a legitimate gripe because of that.

It's obvious that only TWO owners understood that this deal smelled bad. I mean, have you HEARD and other small market owners come out and say it's a good deal after it was passed? Nope, because they can't, and admitting it was a bad deal makes THEM look like idiots for voting yes. So in a sense the NFL has no one to blame but themselves. But since Ralph DID vote no and sees some deception and chicanery, he's using EVERY means possible to fight it. And I say YOU GO RALPHIE! And please don't invoke partisanship here, please. There is a PPP board for that, and this is a fight that should involve ALL politicians.

The team valuations are tied to the revenue being brought-in, Kelly, of which the RV contract is by far and away the largest piece. Again the values of teams has skyrocketed since 1993-1994, which again coincides with Fox's foray into sports and creating 4 networks for basically 3 NFL packages. I would be surprised at anything over $2M. But we'll find out soon since he'll have to sell them.

Yes PRIOR to the CBA, the value of teams was less. But remember that up until that point, football was shared among the 3 major networks of NBC, CBS, and ABC (later ESPN/Disney). With Fox's overbid for the NFC package starting in 1994, it left one network out in the cold, and set the stage for one-ups-manship everytime the TV contracts came up. And every year one network gets left-out in the cold, waiting until the NEXT time to jump back in the fray with another overbid. I'd say at best Ralph gets $2M for naming rights. That's a drop in the bucket.

I'd say the players taking just a 0.5% cut from their original stance of 60% of total revenues, while the owners caved-in to a 3.3% INCREASE in their original stance of 56.2%, is getting rolled BIGTIME! And there was NO need to do the deal when they did, but they folded like Ralph said, because it was the eve of FA and they didn't want to have massive player cuts. The deal could have been done at anytime before the end of the 2006 season. And while the uncapped year SEEMED like a windfall for players, it wasn't really. Increasing the years of service from 4 to 6 before you could become a FA would have restricted TONS of players. Also benefits would have been wiped-out, and there wouldn't be a minimum. At worst a team like the Bills spends little, pockets the money, and reloads for the next CBA and cap.

No it didn't. The NFL basically sells itself. And with networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, ESPN, TNT, and OLN falling over themselves and willing to pay tons of money to air whatever games they can, it's like taking candy from a baby. And while we'll never know the inner workings of the "intense" negotiations that went on with the new TV contracts, what I DO know is that the NFL got BUFU'd BIGTIME by the NFLPA with the new CBA. It was actually embarrassing to see the billionaire boys club get sodomized by the millionaire boys club. And what's going to be even BETTER is seeing the billionaire boys club take a kick to the throat by a "feeble" 87-year old man if they try and get cute with their revenue sharing plan.

Thumb wrasslin'.

I would have phrased it "we IS football geniuses," but hey, what do I know?

Great. Then all in the stadium will get to see them suck in HIGH DEF!