SectionC3

Usually you try to find a way to keep good humans around. My wife is a marathon runner and, while watching her, I saw liburd and his co-runner together at the buffalo marathon. I think liburd did something similar at a 5k in orchard park. I was very impressed by and equally touched by his generosity of spirit.

That Whaley pressed must have opened some eyes in the corner office.

London would help a lot with this. I think a game there at 9a east coast time would start at 9p in Hong Kong. in some respects, getting London 8-ish "random" games a year might serve the league better than having the jags play there full time because it would aloe the league to sell a variety of games as a "national" package in both Europe and the Far East.

Maybe. Time will tell. I'm not in the game with this stuff anymore, it I think that even though ratings were down, the "eyeball" count (total number of viewers for all games) held up fairly well last year. Nothing else captures a live audience like the NFL, and I'm of the mind that a year without presidential politics and with an early winter in the Northeast will get ratings back to "good."

It should involve a train. Make it simple to get in and out.

I think you might be right about the parallelism. It would explain nursing Thursday along. If the league is looking for something new, maybe a late night west coast package could be in play. The league probably could cobble together a month of late night west coast games to sell at a pretty penny. For what it's worth, I read somewhere that Amazon asked ESPN about subletting games for which ESPN owned the rights but which ESPN chose not to broadcast. The day and age of internet networks is coming soon.

I agree with just about all of this, except for maybe the part about the increase in broadcast rights. We are one or maybe two negotiating cycles from an Internet company (Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc.) making a huge bid for broadcast rights. Internet ecosystems are the next networks, and the NFL is going to legitimize a streamer in the way it helped Fox in the 90s.

This clown notes that ESPN is on channel 26 in his spectrum lineup, and that FS1 is at channel 401. Channel lineup is set in part by demand/viewership. Sounds like FS1 is putting the wood to ESPN.

Any idea how well Whaley was prepped? I ask bc if he was prepped well it's even more of a damning commentary on whaley.

It would shock a lot of people to know who spills what beans. I'll leave it at that.

So you agree that lacanfora has at least some credibility on the subject? For what it's worth, I think (could be wrong) that lacanfora was on the right track on Rex/tyrod at the end of the season.

This is why my magic 8-ball says berchtold sourced this story. It's reasonable to suspect that berchtold would believe Whay is at least part of the reason that berchtold was demoted, and this story would be a nice way to tweak whaley's nose and to stir the pot at the old office.

Well said. I. Holding out hope Ragland plays lighter and therefore a bit faster than we expect. On Preston, I've see the irony in his recruitment of Zach - it may be that Zach pushes Preston out of a starting role and (however unlikely at this point) perhaps even off of the roster.

He was one of the guys yukking it up after the second Miami loss.

Well done!

Number four does it for me. I want guys that will go to battle for each other.

Viewed in isolation, must of this stuff is youthful stupidity and/or no big deal. It's the pattern of behavior that is the problem. I think the kid probably is a punk, but I like his arm talent and I love his compete. I would be fine with drafting him (at a reasonable spot) if for no other reason than to push Cardale. Of course, the other consideration is that it would be oh-so-Billsy for us to pass on the kid and then have him play well for a rival. Same thing holds true for Kizer. Flip his 2015 and 2016 seasons and he might have gone first overall.

Good clarification. I've long felt that all agents should be lawyers. This mess reinforces that view.

The more I think about this, the more questions I have about the PA's practice of disclosing offers. I don't think there is a problem with permitting access to offers made to a certain player during a single negotiating cycle AFTER that player has signed. But it seems like offers are disclosed BEFORE the player signs. That, to me, is dangerous. Players are in competition with each other for jobs. Why encourage them to undercut each other? This is a real mess, and I would be livid if I was the player.

I'm not as definitive on that, but keeping garrapolo easily could be seen as a hedge against a Brady departure/age-related regression.

I have no idea if this has happened before. Probably a bigger threat to player than to Bills - after all, agent should have particulars of all offers, whereas the agent might not release details of offers to other teams where there are multiple teams bidding for the player's services so as to drive up the bids. -- This becomes a bigger issue for the bills if this player doesn't sign. Other teams bidding against us for the next WR4 we would target would know likely structure of our bid. To that end, if I was the bills I would have reservations about doing business with this agent again. And from the agent's perspective, the publication of these details better not result in the reduction of a higher offer. Somebody - be it the agent or the PA - very easily could be repsonsible for the amount of the reduction. And not good for the agent's practice.

Not sure what code of conduct is at issue. But if I was the player I would have a lot of questions about what happened. I suspect that, if the client is compliant, the agent will try to push him into a deal ASAP to make this mess go away.

There but for the grace of God go us all. Very well said.

This is a really bad look for the agent/PA. Can't imagine the bills are thrilled about the publication of the structure of their offer. Assuming the bills are not the high biddder/high guaranteed offer, client could have legitimate concern that the "better" offer is reduced in view of terms of bills' offer. Could also impact this agent's dealings with teams regarding other clients.

This is a good point. The last time the ravens played here flacco threw a rainbow that went further than any ball I have seen thrown in 30+ years of going to games in our stadium. It was the play on which Aaron Williams made a shoestring, touchdown-saving tackle.