BuffaloBrad

Who said anything about pain and suffering? The money is going to fund a health plan that takes care of players suffering from brain injuries that are believed to be the result of head trauma. Long term care costs can easily run over $100k a year and are generally not covered by health insurance.

What do they use the old administration building for now? Are there suites in there?

I thought this was common knowledge, but I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in the thread. After a series of on field deaths, football was actually almost banned early in the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton, setup a commission led by Teddy Roosevelt that led to a series of rule changes that make the game safer. http://mentalfloss.com/article/31657/time-teddy-roosevelt-saved-football I believe some states did briefly ban football during this period.

Grimm seems like a guy Doug Whaley might pick, seeing that both were part of the Steeler organization.

How about this for an estate plan: Ralph borrows heavily against the value of the team. He uses this money to buy a series of large life insurance policies with his heirs as beneficiaries. When Ralph passes the team passes to his wife with no estate tax required due to the spousal exception. His heirs receive their inheritance tax free though the insurance policies, Hi wife sells the team, paying whatever the capital gains tax rate is at the time and retiring the debt that Ralph had accumulated. Will the capital gains tax rate be higher when Ralph passes than it is today? Probably yes as long as we have a Democratic president, but I don't think we'll see 35% again in my lifetime. I'd be willing to bet that we see capital gain rates back to 15% next time a Republican is in office and 0% is not out of the question. I'm sure Ralph's real estate plan is a fair bit more complex than this, but I'd be willing to bet that he won't pay a dime of estate tax.

When his wife sells, capital gains tax will be due. I'd bet that that a 25% capital gains tax would be preferable to either a 35% or 55% estate tax. After the team is sold, there are ways to pass the sales proceeds to his other heirs while avoiding further taxes. The estate tax might be an issue if Ralph wanted to keep the Bills in his family, but I don't believe it is as along as he's planning to sell the team.

I'd expect ownership to pass to his wife at his death, in which case the estate tax isn't immediately relevant due to the spousal exemption.

The referee of today's game, Bill Leavy, is the same guy who called SB XL, the horribly officiated Steelers/Seahawks Super Bowl.

Sure did. Especially smarts when we've been flagged on a couple of those.

No way was that a fumble on the Stratton sack. Tuck rule.

JetBlue used to have Sunday Ticket, but dropped it after 2010. They've had the RedZone since. As IslandBillsFan pointed out, you should also get whatever games are on their CBS/Fox affiliates, which I believe are the NYC feeds.

They've been bad in recent years, but they've won three World Series in this guy's lifetime.

I've been printing out my season tickets so that I can keep my season ticket sheet intact as a souvenir. It will be nice to have the year we win our first Super Bowl.

Here's a list of HOF QBs with their age at their last SB appearance: Marino, 23 Namath, 25 Farve, 27 Griese, 28 Aikman, 29 Bradshaw, 31 Kelly, 33 Young, 33 Montana, 33 Starr, 34 Staubach, 36 Unitas, 37 Elway, 38 This says that most HOF QBs don't do much after their early 30s. The guys who did make it to the SB in the latter part of their career were mostly on teams with a lot of talent. With the Pats defense in the state it's in, I'd say the odds are against them.

He's back now.

An eye injury, according to the radio guys.

I take the Path train to Hoboken and then transfer to a NJ Transit train to the Meadowlands. Hoboken is also good place to meet up with folks before heading to the stadium as there are a lot of bars right around the station.

The "third quarterback rule" was dropped this year. Each team is now allowed 46 active players on game day.

I guess they don't care about the Jets or Fish either. The games not selling out does quite a bit to demonstrate that Toronto is not a viable NFL city. No city can keep their NFL team long term if they fail to consistently sell out since the majority of NFL revenue comes from TV. Premium seat revenue is small potatoes by comparison and, to get the really big bucks, requires a big investment by the team to build a modern stadium. So that $1000 club seat might have to help service hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stadium debt. I hear the excuse that the Bills aren't Toronto's team. If Toronto fans really wanted an NFL team, this wouldn't be an issue. The Bills in Toronto games were marketed as the first step in the Bills eventual relocation to Toronto. The difficulty the Rogers folks have had selling tickets is a statement that they don't want the Bills. What do you think would happen if a struggling NHL team played an exhibition in Hamilton or some other hockey deprived Canadian city? Would the fans not show up because it wasn't their team? I think that you'd have near riots with fans trying to get tickets.

I just checked and only the Patriots game and the Indy game had tickets available on Ticketmaster. The Patriots game looks close to sold out.

I'd never watch another NFL game.

Grogan preceded Eason, though the switch over to Eason was not clean. I think both started games for the Pats in 89-90. I only know this because I lived in Boston at the time. I can verify that there were virtually no Pats* fans in existence when I lived there. The Giants were more popular among the people I knew.

I can attest to this. A lot of people can attest to this.

I agree wholeheartedly. In addition, they have had balanced coverage of all 32 teams rather than just focusing on a select few. ... and ESPN is a second rate channel. I avoid it as much as I can.

Last week's San Diego victory against Oakland was also aided by the officials SF Gate Story Perhaps San Diego is the "new" New England?