finknottle

To me, even more important is this fact: we gave up a first round pick for a runningback who we knew would contribute nothing for a year. We were willing to part with a first round pick and pay him 5 years of salary for only 4 years of productivity. When the dust settles on this contract and we can look at his numbers we have to ask ourselves if we got *5* years worth of first round productivity.

Fair enough. My point is that we reject the idea that coaches can make good decisions on a qb without starting them 16+ games, even though they spend 24-7 running these guys through drills, but we are perfectly willing to accept locking ourselves into guys based on our perceptions of their comparitive upside. Sounds like you are saying your common sense is a better indicator of a players talent than what coaches can learn working with them.

How do you know this upside you keep talking about? Apparently coaches aren't smart enough to know, running practice after practice, if a guy has what it takes... but armed with a draft guide and some college highlights you know who has more 'potential?'

Funny - this time last year, they were saying the same can't-miss franchise guy things about Leinhart... We had our chance and passed. New toys have a short shelf-life.

He had a year on the team studying the system, film, and game plans; some suiting up, and even some limited action. This was followed by an entire off-season in which he prepared as the number man guy and with #1 reps. No, he was *not* basically a rookie. A rookie doesn't have that kind of preparation. I'm not writing JP off, but I'm getting very nervous about the apologies for him, because under their arguments you can never really get closure on a guy. It's just possible that a coach can watch a player and see things that we fans don't, especially if - God forbid - he watches him in practice. If you believe half the posters on this board, coaches can't evaluate anybody untill they've seen them in at least 20 games! This is particularly ironic on draft weekend

You don't know. So if you've decided you really want a guy, why risk out-smarting yourself TD-style to where you're stuck drafting, I dunno, another receiver instead?

Punter.

but maybe we can let Clements walk now and spend that tender money... The one year tender is a pretty hefty warchest. Maybe the plan was to see if we can cover his loss through the draft *before* we decide to let him go?

The smartest explanation I've read here this weekend.

Well duh. But there is a time and place for wild speculation about the draft, and that is draft day. I suppose you would rather be discussing more serious topics this weekend, like whether or not Roscoe is too small to play in the NFL, or who will start at QB.

I'm not defending him, because I don't like him and dislike the Redskins even more, but the fact is his numbers are down because Williams didn't play him. When he was in there he was all right. The speculation here wasn't 'Why isn't LaVar performing' it was 'What's going on in practice that they keep LaVar on the bench.' So how do you say his play has faltered, that he's shot physically, etc? You must know something nobody in Washington knows... it's kinda like national commentators writing off Losman because they read that he got benched twice.

This automatic trashing of any non-Bill gets pretty lame. I don't like LaVar, but I've been stuck watching Redskin games for the past few years and based on the situation he's been in - basically, never played - neither I nor the local sportcasters know how good he is right now. He's looked good when he's been in there, and the speculation centers on personality issues between him and the coaches. So to say he's a shell of himself, he's too injured, etc, is absurd.

I did a similar study during last season, and had similar findings. 50% Bust 25% Journeyman quality 25% Legit long-term starter To the earlier poster who pointed out (correctly) that lower picks have longer odds, I would differ from his conclusion that teams in need need to pick their qb in the first round. Instead, I think the best strategy based on this data is that you pick a qb every year, and do not put all your eggs in his basket. You do not take a step back to develop him on the field, because the chances are you will spend years sapping the morale of the team just to find out he's not your guy. You keep these qb's on the bench untill they show they are better than the guy starting. Do you have to do it that way? Of course not. I simply think this strategy has the best W-L payoff for the franchise over time.

I don't understand this deep pockets talk. How does that make the Bills a better investment? Is the idea that he is going to operate the team at a loss? Or that he would be more willing to buy the team but make a smaller profit than if he moved it?

hmmm... interesting.

But I think the question is whether or not the franchise can make money under the new CBA cap even assuming you sell out. If we're playing to half-empty stadiums the issue is moot.

Why would signing Hutchinson improve the value of the Bills? Will significantly more people attend the games? Will the NFL fork over more TV money? No. And any effect can not be expected to last beyond his contract. Improving the value means improving the revenue stream.

You're right - I was basically thinking about it only as a revenue producer rather than as speculation. Still, if you are going to think about it only as speculation then one can't help but worry that - given the outlook for WNY - the value may have topped out.

The point is that he invested FAR more than 25k. There is a big difference between a 25k investment growing to $600 million over 50 years and, say, a million growing to 600. Or do you think that that's all he shelled out during the AFL years? There must have been a lot of sell-outs... (I don't know how much time and money he actually put in)

I agree with that. My pet peeve is just the over-simplistic 'Ralph paid 25k and it turned into a fortune' mantra.

But people don't think that way in the real world. If I sink 10k into a stock and in 10 years it turns into 200k, great! But if after that it returns 2% a year, with no upturn in sight, guess what? I don't twiddle my thumbs and think happily about all the money I made, I sell. It's simply not a good investment.

I am really tired of this BS about 25k. Only an idiot too lazy to think things through would believe that the Bills did not lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the early years. And he didn't sit back and do nothing - getting the AFL going was a full-time committment by the founders. It was a lifetime of labor and hundreds of thousands of 60's dollars, in the face of extremely long odds, that earned him his franchise. So if you think lucky people write checks for 25k and have them turn into fortunes, I have an email from Nigeria for you.

Fair enough. But an investor usually figures on a 5% return on their money. So if he owns 100% of 600 million worth of investments, he ought to be getting a $30 million dollar return. A $10 million dollar return doesn't keep pace with inflation (about 2%) - he's actually losing money. As a strictly business decision, keeping the Bills in Buffalo are a bad use of his investment.

Bruce Smith was years ahead of his time.

I am so sick of hearing people throw around the 25k number. Makes for a good one-liner, but it's not true. 25k was the franchise fee. Do you think he wrote a check and then never paid a dime more? Do you really think tickets paid for salary and operations during the early years? And what about the money he gave/loaned the Oakland Raiders to keep them afloat? Did that come out of the 25k too? RW did very well on this investment. But he did risk a lot of money and stuck with it over time, and it takes a small man and a lot of envy to begrudge him his success. If you think it's so easy, there are a lot of startup leagues in different sports looking to sell franchises for less than 50k. But guess what? That check won't be the last one you write.