MadBuffaloDisease

I'm pretty sure that with the money Cleveland had ($30M), they weren't going to be outbid for Bentley and Shaffer. Realize that by signing them this quickly, these were guys they targeted, and made them an offer they couldn't refuse. And I was never high on Shaffer to being with. I'd rather put Peters at LT and sign a guy like Ashworth or Runyan for a LOT less than it would have taken to sign Shaffer.

ICE was a maroon, hence he does.

I'll do that. Shaffer was the best option at LT, but the Browns scooped him up quick. And with Shelton it's also caveat emptor, although in his case, he's already proven that when he's paid well, he doesn't play well.

OG.

With Brees, it's caveat emptor. He had a weak arm BEFORE his injury, which hasn't healed yet and reports are that it's worse than previously thought, and it won't be any stronger. Moreover the Dols don't currently have a LT and the only prospect left is LJ Shelton, who will want big bucks and probably get lazy (again) after getting them.

He turned down bigger offers. I suspect that if there were a bidding war for his services, the Pats would have backed-out. And reportedly they offered Harrison more than any other team, but it was only something worth about $2M a year in real dollars. Considering that Vinatieri was one of, if not THE, most important piece to the SB wins over the years, and since there's no one comparable available to the Pats, letting him go isn't a smart thing for the FO to do. And the reports are that the Pats want to pay him LESS than what he made last year, again despite what he's done for the team over the years, and his performances in the playoffs. Not very smart either. Well with more coaching defections and now probably losing 2 key players, coupled with last year's results, I wouldn't be heartened by it either. As I said, I'll be curious to see if Kraft changes his paradigm when it comes to getting players, but the team that won those 3 SB's is fading away quickly.

The Browns had $28M in cap room and generate more revenues. Plus Bentley is from Cleveland.

They got Shaffer as well.

So too did Davis, at 248#. Hey, I have an idea! Take Davis at #8 and have him be a 2-way threat as a TE and LB'er!

Well to be fair, while Wahle was a great player for the Panthers, they overspent for him. I agree with Parcells when he said (paraphrasing) "give me a good LT and I'll fill in the rest," and I'd throw in center and RT as well. But an OG getting tackle money?

The NFLPA/Upshaw said that with the new CBA, they wanted ALL revenue to be subject to the cap. The owners caved on that issue IMMEDIATELY. They should have fought that to the end, using the percentage of total revenues as the bargaining chip, and starting with LESS than 54.5%, but settling somewhere slightly above that, and WELL below 59.5%. And next time around, where do they go? Yep, 60% or higher of DGR (which now equals total revenue). Great move, NFL owners!

Well unless they're sold, we'll never actually know. Maybe Ralph is holding out for a new stadium and THEN to sell naming rights, like Jerry Jones is reportedly doing?

Crazy money! And Wahle was a good, albeit expensive, pickup for Carolina.

Colvin was signed in 2003 and came for less than he could have gotten elsewhere. I suspect that if the Pats hadn't won the SB in 2001 and didn't keep their coaching staff and team mostly together, he might have shopped himself around and NOT been a Patriot. Since then the Pats have spent little on outside players, but had the coaching staff to take whatever they DID have and make it work. Now they don't, so they're going to have to open the purse strings, and with the new CBA, Kraft has to give up more money. We'll see if Kraft's approach has changed at all, but it appears it hasn't given what's going on with McGinest and Vinatieri. And the Pats didn't even make the AFCCG last year, did they?

Well that would be a decrease and they'd never agree to it. Instead it should have been 56.2%, like the owners were demanding. Instead they caved and saw them giving 3.3% more than they wanted, while the players got 0.5% less than they wanted.

My bet is that anyone who thinks that Ralph should have had enough time to read, understand, and sign-off on the CBA in 45 minutes never sat through a closing for a home, much less from a shady lender.

As they say, "a bird in the hand..." Given the extra room teams have to sign players, you don't cut a player unless you have his replacement already signed. Moulds won't be going anywhere unless they get someone else in first.

The Pats are too cheap to sign players. They have this arrogance about them that they can STILL sign anyone to less-than-market value contracts, and have them play like Pro Bowlers. Needless to say it's going to bite them in the ass sooner rather than later.

"An extra $5 to $10 million"...a year? LMAO! At best Ralph will get $2M a year, and probably $1.5M, from naming rights. Hardly the windfall it seems (not that he shouldn't do it, at the very least to shut everyone up about how he's losing SO much money from NOT doing it).

Ralph is right. The owners caved. The players wanted the cap to be based on all revenue: they got it. They wanted 60% of revenues to be the cap limit while the owners wanted 56.2%: it ended up being 59.5%. Wow, great negotiating, owners!

If the Bills want Fat Ted, he's theirs. The question is, do they?

So a bad deal is better than no deal at all?

So it's okay for owners to take NFL-funded money, what's been called "almost free money," to pay for new stadiums that help bring in "local" revenue, but when it comes time to SHARE that money, it should be all that owner's money? Wrong!

The "perception" was that the Bills were the biggest chokers in the history of sports for losing 4 SB's in a row. The fact is that perception and reality often times don't correlate.

As stated above, his daughters don't want the team. And NO ONE in the organization can afford the team after he passes. Hence he needs to either find an owner to sell it to BEFORE he kicks, or let it pass to his daughters' hands, and then for them to sell it to someone (like Golisano). The problem I could see with that is that with the urgency to sell and settle estate taxes, the NFL could potentially manipulate the sale to someone who has no interest in keeping the team in Buffalo. I say that Ralph should sell the team to Golisano (if reports are correct that he wants to buy it) soon rather than waiting for it to change hands after his death. The question though is, when would he want to do this?