Pyrite Gal

The two raps I have heard on him is that: 1. He tends to take a lot of plays off and go on vacation. 2. He has been subject to a number of nagging nicks that cost him some games and they in particular have occured in his lower body. Both of these issues would strike me as serious disqualifiers for picking him at #8, particularly if some boards have smaller DT but with very strong upper body stregth Bunkley also very likely available at #8 though some pundits like Kiper having Bunkley being taken before Ngata while other have the Bunkster as a mid 1st pick whom the Bills can get even if they trade down. My sense is that though these two complaints are disqualifiers if judged to be true of him as a pro, I can easily see that a judgment might be made that these two issues can be dealth with: First, I am not bothered by a DT who takes 1/4 or as much as 1/3 ofthe plays off if he has a monstously fast first step and fits the Bills Parcells Planet Theory of having the weight and taking up space that he clogs up the middle simply by being there and holding his own. Sam Adams was a great player even though he took a lot of plays off because the opposing DC or players never knew which play he was going on vacation. Opponents simply were forced to double Adams (particularly when his spot was the point of attack) and the main opposing player exhausted himself by being on every play because they never knew when Adams might play seriously and totally enbarass the opponent and blow up the play by penetrating the backfield. TD deserved to be canned when he was as in 5 years under him the Bills never made the playoffs. However, one episode of outstanding work by him was correctly reading Adans that late in his career he finally grew up and several constant watchers of the game felt that Adams took fewer plays off as a Bill than at any time in his career. The same reasons that Adams improved his play as a Bill will not be true for Ngata as Adams realized he was getting older and recommitted himself to make a big effort or his career would be over. However, as Carucci noted, both of Ngata's parents died in the last few years abd reoirts are that in order to deal with this agony he has actually committed himself to working hard. Combined with him moving from the frolic and babes of college life to becoming and adult with professional responsiblities it is quite easy to imaging Ngata improving his play up to the 66-75% on levels where he both is a player who is effective at his position and also liberates Triplett or the DEs to rush the passer with single coverage opposition because the OL is shifting toward Ngat. Amateur viewers like me have our opinions, but they are really worthless in this regard as the best way to judge is to do what i call looking him in the eye and really measuring what kind of man he has become with these life altering changes. Folks who simply dismiss Ngata due to what they judged of his effort in college may be coincidentally correct that he will have the same effort as a pro. Howe ver, this same line of thinking led folks to complain about the TD below cost acquisition of Adams as merely picking up a fat tub of goo. Though these was logic to this view, this logic proved incoreect as: A. People change and mature and the life changes in Ngata's life may be just this type of impetus. B. Even if Adams was a fat tub of goo (instead of the Pro Bowler he was for us) a fat tub of goo was an improvement over using Edwards as a starter. With Anderson first on our depth chart and a fat tub of goo would be an upgardw in my view, the key is for Marv to make the right call on whether in addition to be an athlete judged by most pundits to be worthy of a top ten pick he will become a pro and teammate worthy of a high pick. Given Marv's history of quality management of a diverse and fractious Bills team, I actually trust him to either pass on or take Ngata as his judgment merits. Second, there is the serious rap on him of a series of nagging injuries. The question is whether he is in fact injury prone and should be passed over, or is a history of injuries something which can be avoided by him as a pro with a full time well trained strength and conditioning coach and far better training equipment and techniques available to him as a pro than what he had in college. Again, I think the Bills docs have a proven track record of diagnosing injuries and also perscribing a treatment regime which is effective. The outstanding example of this of course is WM and the Bills docs clearly were better than a large part of the NFL docs in making a good medical. This was a traumatic injury rather than a nagging injury, but again in cases like overseeing the redevelopment of the out of shape body of MW in 2004 and having little history of them cutting a player due to an injury issue only to have him comeback elsewhere under better care, i think the Bills docs can make a good call here. So my general advice to draft watchers is simply to ignore the dead lock certain predictions of us amateurs on TSW and instead comment on whether you trust Marv and the docs regarding choosing or not choosing Ngata.

I actually agree with most of what you say about many (in fact most) professional clearly being retarded judging by the way they draft and appear to try to build teams. Rather than overstate the competence of NFL draft professionals, I simply state that even with critical information about making judgments like in depth injury and medical assessment and an ability to see for real, interview and meet draftees they still screw up and draft folks like Mamula, MW, Leaf, Wickey Williams, and a plethora of others far too high and pass on opportunites to draft folks like Brady, Montana and a plethora of other great players. I would not even challenge your contention that most of these folks are retarded, but even you have to admit that it is quite impressive that these retarded folks manage to get someone to pay them tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are retarded. Its really quite impressive what retards are able to do fiscally here. The main thing I would really disagree with from you thoughts is when you say: The only thing that is laughable is when people actually put blind trust in their team's management. Actually, though the efforts of many NFL professionals is in fact quite laughable, it is not nearly as funny to this observer as the observations of many amateurs on the draft who appear to be legends in their own mind that such and such choice is a dead lock certainty, when virtually guaranteed they have no access to essential info even the retards screw up when they have it. One of the main reasons I feel comfortable going on and on in my posts is that I do not think at all that my views are better than the retards who run NFL teams. This game is fascinating to me exactly because I do not know what will happen next and because despite watching it enough and being fascinated by stats to come up with detailed theories, I am quite often wrong (in sports, my observation during the NBA draft that this Jordan kid did not look like much to me because at his height he was clearly a tweener too small to be a forward and too large to be a guard... hah). I get grins from folks who seem to be interested in the NFL because they claim they no everything or enough about it. If I knew what was going to happen next I would seriously run to go watch something that gave me the joy of learning new things. I have a tone of respect for retards who somehow find a way to make a living fooling around with a boys game, while the rest of us stiffs need to work for living.

One can certainly know whether a player is or is going to be a good athlete, but not necessarily whether this good athlete is going to be a good pro. From taking folks like Joey Harrington with the #3 choice (not to mention our own Mike Williams with the #4), to the sharp debate which led to Peyton Manning being selected just ahead of miscreant Ryan Leaf, to one of the best players in pro football Tom Brady lasting until the 6th round, the draft seems to be little more than a coinf flip in terms of the outcomes for particular players taken at particular times (which defines this Un-American restraint of trade called the draft). The amazing thing is that these spotty results are achieved by people who have demonstrated enough proficiency at the mechanics of this that someone pays them. These folks achieve these moderate results having far more real information than we amateur watchers can gather such as real medical reports and evaluations which we do not have and also interviewing and getting to measure these men as people which we never do. It actually is quite hilarious to see anyone on Internet boards claim that achieving good results in this is simple. Folks do get their picks right from time to time, but based on the results achieved in the real world, these "right" answers appear more likely to be coincidences than any indication of mastery of this easy task.

I agree we probably trade down if we can because we need the help that an extra first day pick or two can give us in order to get more Ws. I see two potential problems with Ngata both of which we may reasonably chose to feel they can be dealt with by talking to and measuring the man. We are quite familiar with DTs who take plays off, because this was a real rap on Adams. However, TD read him correctly when he negotiated with him that Adams was a changed man. Rather than take half the game off as he did earlier, he reduced that to only taking a 1/3 or a quarter of the game off as a Bill. Since he had an outrageously fast first step for a DT, the opposing OC and blockers assigned to him could not take any plays off because they did not know whether Sam would be vacationing that play or simply enbarass them by blowing into the backfield or sacking the QB. Ngata sounds like the same type of player in that he has a rep for an incredibly quick first step and a massive body. If the braintrust judges that he is willing to make good on a commitment to change upon entering the adult world as Adams was stimulated to do by feeling age catch up with him, he may well be a great choice. The other rap on him are his having a series of nagging injuries in college. The ori game and the college game are really different things in terms of the pros having the best equipment and professionals working constantly and consistently on strength and conditioning. If the Bills are also concerned about this issue, but make the judgement that they can be addressed with better and consistent strength, conditioning and diet and they judge that Ngata can make the change in his habits with the large changes in his life of becoming a well paid pro and also his reaction to his Mom's recent death he will be a very good choice. However, if from their discussion with him and the doctors look see, they have signfiicant doubts, then they should work hard to trade down and hiope they get Bunkley. At any ratem this is a case where the fan opinion of Ngata seems pretty incomplete for drawing any rational conclusions unless they have examined him medically to ascertain as best as possible the cause of his nicks and unless they have looked the man in the eyes when they asked him questions about what it means to him to become a pro.

Why trade NC. We will have to do some driving (negotiate tough on a long term deal for him) but we are in the driver's seat regarding NC. Since the yearly cap hit at CB was lowered by the balloon payment to Winfield coming off the top 5 CB salaries his cap hit is lowered. Meanwhile, the overall cap goes way up with the nwq TV deal kicking in so we can easily afford to pay him. Throwing a hissy fit does not work at all for him as we now are late in the team building process and by the time the draft is done everyone will be set at CB for the most part. He is coming off a disappointing year and since we tagged him he will need to play hard in 06 to produce or he will be negotiating as an FA next year coming off two disappointing seasons in a row. Negotiate hard with NC and if we make a long term deal it will give him a far bigger paycheck than he has ever gotten before ad he will be here for perhaps his term as a player so he should be fairly content though he will be disappointed he did not get the top CB dollar in the league. I think it should work out even better for us if he simply plays under the tag. He must perform and also has a lot of financial reasons to be a good boy so he is more attractive as an FA not simply to owners but also to his fellow players as a good teammate. Even better, the CBA allows us to tag him again if we choose if he plays well in 06.

Look America is all about the haves and the have-nots. Under a free-market system, the teams that perform better do better and the teams that do perform as well or badly enough go out of business or move to markets which serve more people. The NFL developed a system where they did not invest in a free-market of individuals improving the overall product through competition. Instead they have embraced a collaborative system based on large scale sharing of revenue and costs. The system actually is based on activities which are downright un-American like restraints of trade fostered through the draft and through banning teams from signing players they might judge to be good enough to invest in because they hsve not graduated from college (while other American sports profit through us being entertained by 16 year olds if they are good enough to play). In some ways, the Bills or lower revemue teams are a victim of a system which though it has rejected pretty fully a free-market individual approach has not fully embraced a system which takes care of the weaker market teams. In for a penny in for a pound. However, the NFL and its partners in the NFLPA (they are pretty clearly the majority partners now getting 59.5% of all revenues, but this is reasonable since few would pay to see Al Davis square off against Ralph on Sunday) have apparently decided that though they reject the free-market approach they do not fully embrace a collaborative approach that would save historic particiants like the Bills who serve low-revenue markets.

Trade down and we can get threse three in the first two rounds.

I really dont know Kirwin's judgment from Adam as I have not paid much attention to his columns. However, even though Kirwin may be an idiot in terms of the judgments about players hr makes, I think he is right on target as far as a critical element in choosing a player should be the brauntrust and team draft leader talking to the player and making a judgment as to whether he has a professional temperament in addition to having professional stats at the combine, good demogrphics for his body or glossy numbers against college competition. The annals of the NFL are full of players from Mike Mamula (outstanding Combine showing) to Mike Williams (tremendous athleticism in a huge body) or Ryan Leaf (great college stats). In the end, none of the factors stopped these men from being busts because they did not have a professional temperament that helped them become great athletes. Clearly, merely talking a good game does not justify selecting a player alone. However, the stats which we fans rely on too heavily must be supplemented by what I have been referring to as looking a player in the eye when you interview him. This is merely one of the reasons why any dead lock certain pronouncements made on TSW are pretty much worth the photons they are printed on. The key assessment in this draft is actually not whether an individual player has the right stuff but whether Marv has the right stuff to manage our sprawling wolrd of scouts and player personnel guys and whether he has the judgement to choose good men rather than simply punching the clock of the next Terrel Owens.

It could be for a number of reasons and unless we are in his head we cannot know for sure. One can try to figure out his motivations from the $ numbers involved, but since while we have good knowledge about a lot of numbers involving things like the cap amount and the general revenue cost calculations which determine it, there are a lot of particulars about the Bills and other individual teams at a business we really are guessing about. Some of these guesses are based on other publicly available information like the tax dollars Erie County puts into the Ralph. There really is fairly unusual and even unprecedented info available about privately held businesses, because the NFL and NFLPA require relatively full and accurate disclosure about a lot of this info so they can check each other. However, there still is a lot of private unavailable info about the particulars and the growing partnership between the NFL and NFLPA only requires bottomlines for lots of things and not the particulars. Among Ralph's motivations which differentiates him from other owners may be: 1. He is one of 2 bright folks who really understand this out of 32 owners. This is doubtful since there is the separate party of Tags and the NFL infrastructure which endorses this deal. It is incredibly doubtful that all these folks are blind fools hoodwinked by that wily genius Gene Upshaw. In fact, given that the company that Ralph has on his side is that idiot Mike Brown who ran the Bengals into the dirt for well over a decade until he finally hired the right guy in Marvin Lewis does not speak well for an argument that Ralph simply sees and understands what few others do. 2. The rest of the league (for the most part) understands it all, but Ralph is one of the few who ofthe smaller revenue teams who understands how this screws smaller revenue clubs. The numbers in favor of the CBA are so losided this probably is not true as well. Figure that of the lowest 1/3 of revenue owners in the NFL of these roughly 10 teams either the Bills and the Bengals earn so poorly that even though all understand the numbers, the Bills and Bengals are so low revenue that only they need some relief. Alternately, a larger amount of lower revenue teams are going to lose money soon as the cap formula changes but they simply are not as smart as Ralph and Mike Brown. I doubt both the almost a thrid of the league are fools and 2/3 are mercenary folks calculation as there is nothing to substantiate this in other activities and I doubt the idea that the Bills and Bengals are so poorly run they are demonstraby worse than other teams. In fact, the estimates made by Forbes magaine seem to show the Bills do be one of the more proitable teams. 2.The big difference here between teams is that Ralph will not live forever and when he goes that is actually when the Bills take it in the shorts and he is fighting against this. This one is true to some extent as Ralph's death will mean two likely occurences: A. The new owners will not qualify for revenue sharing and the team will lose this cash stream. B. Ralph's estate will owe the taxes it cannot protect itself from for a capital gain of an investment of a few thousand bucks that is now worth over half a billion. The tax on this gain will force Ralph's heirs to sell the team in order to pay this tax. While both of these things are true what I think is incorrect is that either of these effects force the team to relocate to a higher revenue market. Ralph actually has the ability to unilaterally bind this franchise to Buffalo for a very long time. If the Bills make contractual obligations to remain here, play in a stadium here, or he sells off partial ownership of the team to another party and extends them shares that can veto a move if they choose (for example Ralph can sell a 10% share to Golisano and the owners of the Bills can then require 95% approval to move the team or to change this rule and Golisano gets ability to veto a move. While there is no requirement that Ralph do this as such a maneuver would likely result in diminished estimated value of the team as it cannot move to higher income areas, such a maneuver not only binds the Bills to WNY but also lowers the estate tax hit on the Bills as the value of the team drops. Its hard for me to imagine that Ralph and the bright folks he hires cannot work out some arrangement where his heirs actually lose no money in this deal as though they will still get huge bucks from selling the team, they still would have a huge stake in a lesser value team if the value falls. In fact if the value f the franchise falls enough they can in fact retain ownership of the team. 3. Ralph is actually ringing the alarm bells in order to create a climate in which NYS politicos help the Bills business big time by setting up an authority to issue tax free muni bonds to build a new stadium which the Bills utilize in a similar manner as the current arrangement with the Ralph to have Erie County bear the costs of building and owning while they are compensated for the costs of operations. This actually is my personal favorite and what I would guess is going on here given what Ralph is saying and the timing of his rants vis a vis when gubernatorial elections are occuring, Ralph is flat out saying he is not after profit (usually a sure sign a businessman is after profit) and that he is quite satisfied with the current stadium (though even in a smaller market like Buffalo a new stadium almost certainly means new revenues for the team and if the costs are held by the auhtority its hard to see how this does not help the situation). My sense is that the thing which differentiates Ralph from much of the rest of the NFL is that the majority of teams play in new stadiums built in the last five years. Ralph would say exactly the things he is saying if he is setting up a situation where NYS would make what is a huge corporate welfare payment to benefit the team, though actually it is a fairly small payment compared to the overall size of the NYS budget and economy. I hope this latter course is true because though the result here would be patentedly infair, the main beneficiaries would be my football team and potentially my home City of Buffalo if the new stadium is built in downtown Buffalo. I hope to gosh that what is going on here is that Ralph is simply bellying his business up to the government corporate welfare bar just like so many other corporations are and have done. It ain'r fair but it will really benefit Bills fans and potentially Buffalo and WNY. While there will be an unfair cost for this subsidy it would be spread across all NYS taxpayers and in addition to be far lower than the corporate welfare payments NYS residents make to Wall St. firms and to the medical business infrastructure though our inefficient health care system. Since this unfairness will benefit my team and my City and region potentially I do support it.

Thanks for the run down as I did not see the piece Sportscenter! However, what I do not understand is why folks are complaining about what Mort said, (assuming your rundown is correct) because it all looks at least plausible and correct as best as I can tell. 1. You describe Mort as saying Price comes in to replace Moulds and you expand on this to say Price comes in actually to replace Evans as Evans replaces Moulds. This seems accurate to me. Some folks seem to be confused by you referring to Evans by his first name, but to worry about this point seems to be splitting hairs much as though I agree with you that PP is currently slotted to be the #2, I think that part of the reason Moulds was pissed was that he already had been bounced to the #2 WR slot when JP andEvans connected for 3 TDs in one quarter against the fish. The Bills officially list PP as the starting WR across from Evans on the depth chart. I hope that Parrish steps up in pre-season and takes the #2 slot and forces PP to #3 as having this much speed available in 3 WR sets will be formidable indeed. 2. The Bills were in fact last in the playoffs when the throw-up knocked us out so this seems accurate. 3. My guess is that he is probably correct that Ralph inserted himself into the Bills operations last year and he had every right to do under the American system as the team owner. He did want to keep MM, but clearly MM was displeased with something Ralph did because he jumped ship rather than work for Ralph. I do not see what folks think is inaccurate here since Ralph has a clear record of insisting on a particular QB as he went on record saying he was incredibly impressed with RJ's performance beating the heck out of an Indy tem which was playing for nothing in that game. Next thing you know Flutie who had QB'ed the team to qualifying for the playoffs with a game left in the season was on the bench and it was RJ who led the team to a lead before Porter and other youngsters put on ST because we had so much cap room locked up on RJ/DF did not stay in their lanes as more experienced players might have and we lost the game. Ralph has every right to meddle with his team, but just because he has the right does not make him right in his choices. I think Mort's read on this one is consistent with the facts at least and probably accurate. As far as the Holcomb issue and whether Ralph belongs in the HOF I am not sure and Ralph will be elected after he dies. 4. Yep, the Bills will likely go OL in Rd 1 (certainly if D'Brick falls to ^ and they may take Justice outright or trade down) or in RD 2 (if they go Ngata or Bunkley with the first pick I think they take a G with the second pick). If they do it will be unfortunate because I think getting a better guard is too high a priority to merely try to address this in the crapshoot which is the draft (particularly after Rd 1). The OL is a priority the team should have addressed in FA where you can target proven players rather than consign this need to the draft which I think most fans over-value because of the publicity and the advent of fantasy football which has turned all of us legends in our own minds into experts. 5. It is also no surprise that former defender TJ wants us to pick a defender. The general Kiper prediction of get help in the trenches is one of the great declarations of the obvious. I do not see why folks are questioning Mort's credibility based on your run down because it all looks fiarly obvious and correct to this Bills fan.

Now, let me get this straight as to what you are reffering to. Price clearly failed for AT when they tried to make him a #1 WR and went even further south behind Keyshawn, Glenn and other Dallas WRs last year. However, I do not believe you can seriously be calling a WR who racked up 94 catches in his last go round with the Bills which capped off him improving in his production of yards gained, receptions and TDs in every year as a Bill a coward. The major rap on Price when he was here was that he did lay the ball on the carpet too much. However, even with his too many fumbles, they seem to mostly occur not because Price was a weenie, but because he actually stuggled to pick up a couple of yards with an opponent hanging on his anklesd and then coughed up the ball when a second tackler hit him after the first tackle attempt teed him up. When he was here, I actually felt PP would have aoided the fumbles if he was more of a weenie and simply went down after the first hit (but didn't become too much of a weenie because he needed to hold onto the ball with the first hit as he did as a Bill). The key factors for PP contributing to the Bills in 06 strike me as: 1. At most he will be a #2 WR for us and more likely a #3- While no one should count on him being a reasonable #1 as those fools in AT did, he is a proven NFL producer at #2 as he produced good results (do you agree?) for us as a compliment to Moulds in 2002. He is several years removed from 2002 so it does not appear reasomable to me to expect the same #@ WR performance out of him. However, IF the two big IFs are: 1. Can Evans be a reasonable replacement for Moulds at #1 (could be but he has less circus catch ability, has shown OK hands but has not commanded the middle yet for the Bills as Moulds got this job) but he has far significantly more speed than Moulds and can be a good compliment to the right #2 WR. and. 2. Can Parrish develop into a reasonable #2 WR (this is possible as he also has outstanding spped and showed reasonable (though not phenomenal) hands last year. If Evans and Parrish are the real deal as a #1 and #2 then all we ask of Price is that he produce far less than he already produced as a Bill and be our #3. I hope this works out because if it does, the speed we have on the field and the challenges we pose to Ds to have the speed to cover Evans, Parrish and Price is going to be fun to watch. I can see what Fairchild may be trying to do because even if Parrish does not develop, he has to hope that some surprises come from Davis, or Reed recovers the form he showed as a rookie. or Price actually has enough left to perform as he did in his last year as a Bill, or Aiken somehow shows something he has never shiwn in the field as a WR and one of these players is credible as a #2 with Evans. It strikes me as pretty unlikely to be on any of these 4 players being good enough to be a quality #2. However, even though indiviudally none is a good bet, there is a reasonable chance that one of these four will step up and be a credible #2. If the Bills find a #2 to go with Evans (who I think is the real deal) then I have no problem with hoping/expecting Price to perform adequately as a #3 WR.

While it would be foolish to claim that having a big DT or a big line is the ONLY way to stop the run, it certainly is one good way to stop the run if your DT or DLs have weight, take up a lot of space and are good players. It is one of the simplest things in the world to sit on an argument by assigning your opponent an extreme view. However, I think the basic case here from folks looking at the Bills drafting Ngata or getting Bunkley (I hope we can strendthen ourselves by trading down and still get him is that they do not see Tim Anderson or any player currently on our roster beinable to stop the run. If you really want to take on a generality that many folks including Marv believe its that being able to stop the run is essential for this team. If you have a theory about how we can do this by drafting some set of small DTs or by going with Anderson I am all eyes. In the absence of you or anyone laying out a plan on how this team can stop the run, if the braintrust feels that Ngata has the right stuff to be a diligent pro and end the inconsistent play of his college days and the Bills who built a good training an conditioning program under Rusty Jones and seemed to maintain it, if they feel good about ending Ngata;s nagging injurt worries I am all for him. If not, then pass on him and trade down and get Bunkley would be great as best as I can tell.

Right on target. Iys the internet and its ffun in part because we can feel free to ignore reality when we want, It seems to me the facts are that though TD deserved io get canned because he went five years as GM without making the playoffs during his time, However, my sense is that his fatal flaws were pretty much defined by his making a horrible hire for his first HC (it is likely as best I can tell because he wanted to hire and HC who did not eventually run him out of town as Cowher did so he hired a guy he knew he could beat if it came down to it, further, he seemed quite willing to let GW screw up as long as he did not get blamed). Yet, though TD deserved to get canned he actually did a fairly good job drafting folks and he was one of the best at reading the market and signing FAs, One would think that Buffalo is a town where no player would want to go from the chip on the shoulder sad sacking we often see on TSW. Yet, in real life we routinely seemed to get FAs like TKO, NFLPA Pres Vincent and a host of others to come here with negotiations by TD and he got folks like Adams here seemingly for less money than other teams offered. As far as drafting goes, MW was clearly a badly flawed choice, however, he wasn't even the biggest bust in that draft and dew if any GMs have no clinkers at all. On the plus side there are the items you point to and him actually having a record of getting pretty good players here but hiring idiots like HW as an HC and Kevin Killdrive as an OC to design a system for these players. Was TD perfect? No, Giwever, was he one of the worst at drafting or player acquisition? No to that as well and actually a number of his player moves were among the best during the salary cap era. The most amazing thing about TD was how he could be so good at many facets of being a GM (the business deals like the move to St. John Fisher, the ticket deal with Wegmans and generally moving management of the team into the 20th century finally were top notch GM work) and still produce such bad results in terms of racking up Ws.

Actually, I agree that LG is a priority which is why I would not consign this important need to such a speculatory Lotto resource as the draft, Good players do have to come from somewhere and good players get drafted. However, there is a huge wildcard of whether the player you want/need will be available at just that brief moment in time you have a choice which essentially makes the draft a place where beyond the first round and certainly the first day basically all you are talking about is speculatory development. Even among 1st rounders I have yet to see anything beyond oure opinion like a good statistical anaysis that your chance here are beyond 50/50. The popularity of fantasy leagues and our fan addiction to stats has really made the fan base place far too much emphasis on the draft as bein more than one tool for team building. If a need was low priority I would look to the draft. If its ahigh priority then I would look to FA where you are going after a proven vet to fill a specific need. I think the best sign unfortunately that the Bills braintrust is not making a real run this year is the large cap room we built after a realtively quiet FA periord on our oart. My guess is that Marv's priorities will remain stop the run and run the ball. I think there will be a relatively small role for the TE but for the most part because I think there will be a relatively small role for the passing game. The re-acquistion of Price interested me because perhaps there is a chance that Fairchild will try to replicate the high-flying Rams passing game. I doubt this though as a whole bunch of WRs would need to step up to make this happen. Parrish would need to develop, Price would need to recover, and Davis would have to be all that we hope (or Aiken or Reed show some production they have never shown), I hope you are right that Nall is going to be great. However, I think there is no logical reason which the rest of us can see to assume or even give him much of a chance of being our QB of the future. Perhaps, if the Bills had for some reason given him a starter's contract then one could assume they view him as a starter. However, they signed him to a deal (and perhaps more important he and the market agreed to a deal) which pays him back-up money. Its legit for a fan to root for him to start ITHO, there is just no record beyond him doing a little mop-up work for the durable Brett Farve to base an opinion on. I think the primary morivation for the braintrust is Ralph's money and he has a ton wrapped up in JP who I suspect will get every chance to make it pay off for the boss. Actually, Cover-2 is all about the coordination between a lot of pressure from the DL, getting great run/paa reads and palying them well from the LBs, and the CBs covering the WRs tight and the S's making great reads and covering a lot of space well playing centerfield and supporting the run stop. For anyone to focus all their attention on one unit to the exclusion of making sure we can play a balanced approah is a recipe to get burned. Kelsay has not been all that great against the run from what I have seen, and actually has been more of a weapon against the pass because of his motor. This could be a breakout year for him if he develops a couple of great first moves that he can use to get more immediate pressure. My mistake as I was rushing a bit as a conference call was ending. I meant King. Ugh. Hawk steps right in and is a huge improvement over Posey, who could get cut and might save us money depending on his cap situation. 664723[/snapback] I think we cut Posey anyway and Crowell likely steps into the SLB slot. He moved from being a back-up MLB to Fletch to being our first call at weakside when TKO got hurt and played OLB credibly enough to earn an extension when we were not forced to do so. My guess that though the Posey remains the starter on the deoth chart as long as TKO comes back that Crowell gets every opportunity to move him out. Hawk is a great player who if added to a team which already is paying starter money to 4 LBs, adding the great contract a great player like Hawk will get will set development of a winning team back by a year as best as I can tell. Like I said, I think that Haloti only gets taken if the Bills see him as making a reality of what Parcells call the Planet Theiry. I only think this will be true if they make the judgment that he will end the childish inconsistency he showed in college (I think there is actually a good chance of this given he is entering the adult working world now and given reports of his rectipns to the life altering event of his Mom dying. Maybe this will not be the events that get him to grow up much as Sam Adams finally grew up when the Bills got him, but i think there is a reasonable chance. I think there is also the nagging injury issue and I dubt that the doctor's report will allow us to ignore this, however, there is the possibility. Believe me, we have seen a huge difference in the physical condition and injury impacts of players when they move from college to pro. There is simply a world of difference between the weight control, overall nutrition, stretching and work of a vet doing this for a living under the watchful eye of a fulltime strength and condidtioning expert and that of a college kid where athletic achievement provides the primary benefit of getting into some girls pants. We have seen this time after time in the more obvious situation of recovery from traumatic college injury like WM and Thurman and also conditioning and weight control of someone like Bruce Smith. There are also stories of negative conditioning stories like Ryan Leaf, but either way there is a big difference between college and pro life.

It definitely strikes me as an intelligent point that if there is a hole in our current starting line-up which is unlikely to filled by anyone developing on our roster, it actually is quite unlikely that anybody we can get at pick # 8 is going to good enough to fill that hole right off the bat though it is hoped the player picked will be a solid starter by mid or certainly the end of the season. The holes on our current starting rotation which are unlikely to be filled by anyone currently on the roster are: 1. RDT- Tim Anderson is first on the depth chart but it is quite unlikely he is going to be the run stuffer we need to stop the run, draw DTs that free up the LBs, or penetrate on occaision to pressure the QB. 2. SS- Coy Wire is first on the depth chart but given he failed at starting here befor and the switch to the cover-2 will actually call for more responsibility from him where he had a problem with pass coverage it is very unlikely he will be good enough to start. There are numerous other position where we need a serious upgrade in starter quality, but actually the Bills seem to feel that last year's starter was at least adequate so if the end up with not getting a stud there I do not think we feel bad even though we want better. I think these positions are: 1. OT- I think that the Bills are still quite hopeful about Peters at RT that he still has not finished developing there and will prove to be a player capable of holding this position for years. Gandy is not the stud you want at LT, but most folks felt that though he was not the difference maker we want he held his own there. 2. FB- I can't believe that they view Shelton as more than a disppointment starting here last year, but there has been little talk of replacing him that I have heard from OBD. 3. Backup RB- Though this is not a starter, given the sense our back-ups are not starter quality, WM's recent history of a blow-out injury, a fan restlessness with the downturn in WM's production in the second half of last year (though for the most part I think this is silly since he has gotten to 2000 yards rushing faster than any Bill RB ever). I think this may be a bigger priority than has been talked about. In addition, to these holes, there are also some positions where output was unacceptable last year but the prospects for player development on the roster probably make this a low priority. These positions include: 1. LG- Anderson was essentially inadequate last year, but some feel his play in the last 5 or so games indicates he is coming toward the form we expected when we gave him a pretty good FA deal. In addition, Preston has now been moved on the depth chart to back-up LG and unless this was done as some smoke for the draft I suspect he will pressure Anderson for the starter job. 2. RG- Villarial is set as the starter, but he began to show that the many years that have made him a solid player also resulted in some nicks knocking him out of a few games. His back-ups are wishes if anything and we may be looking for a G who is flexible enough to back-up and be trained at RG or pressure Anderson and Preston at LG. 3. TE- Output was inadequate leading to a cut of whathisname (how soon we forget when they are gone). However, the acquisition of Royal, the it is to be hoped development of Euhus, the it is to be hoped development of Everett, and the prescence of Neufeld as a flexible back-up and the pipedream hopes for Cieslak make this position pretty full. 4. QB- 05 production was unacceptable, but given that the options for someone to develop are Losman (the Bills still have hope), Holcomb (a solid back-up who has never been a consistent starter anywhere is the likely #2 with little chance of being a starter because there is no way he is the Bills QB of the future), Nall (an interesting longshot to start) and also Woodbury and Ochs the position is full. 5. C is an interesting position for us, as Fowler (whom I thought highly of when he was drafted) seems to be the man. Fowler actually appeared good starting at C in place of an injured starter last year and impressed enough he became too expensive to re-sign as a back-up. Geisinger is now his back-up rather than Preston who potentially could have been a young starter at C. The move of Preston on the depth chart to LG probably reflects some confidence in Fowler. In addition, there are positions which seem pretty locked up for us: 1. DEs- Schobel looks like the man at RE and Kelsay/Denny will duel with each other for LE and allow us to rotate. 2. FS- Vincent led this team in INTs last year, had some speed back when he was a youth and is backed up by former starter at FS Baker and the hard hitting Leonhard. Some folks want to flush TV (as illogical as it would be for this team to simply cut a guy whot tied for the team lead in INTs and FRs) and the cover 2 has now added to his career. 3. Tagging NC, the development of McGee, and Greer likely being pushed by Hill for the nickel makes the CB slots set. 4. Hawk looks like a great player but if the unlikely happens and he somehow drops to #8 he ironically is a good player who if taken would likely set back the development of this team as it would not only force us to sit millions on our bench as a back-up, but leave us not using the #8 to reinforce the many holes on this roster. If he drops, lets hope for the team's sake we can trade the ability to draft him for the extra help we desperately need. 5. WR- We have a bunch of bodies on this roster who will compete to be an adequate #2. None of Parish, Reed, Aiken, or Davis has ever played at an adequate level to be a #2 and though Price has his bad experiences where he failed to be the #1 in AT must give pause. However, there are enough bodies here that someone will likely step up. Price was probably worth the too high bonus he seemed to get because as long as the docs judge him to be OK he would be devastating as our #3 if that is the best he can do. We should be fine on ST given that we have a number of quality back-up level players who will compete to be starters and when they lose we get them on ST. How this all shakes out in my view is: 1. Haloti raises a number of concerns as there is persistent badmouthing of him by Ourlads and on TSW about him being inconsistent. Hpwever, if one subscribes to the Bills Parcells Planet Theory thatdemographically Haloti really is the one player most likely to be available at #8 where if he plays up to his capability and like an adult when he is drafted he may make a difference for the Bills right from the start. There are two things which seem to be the key to making a judgment whether he is a good pick at #8: A. The Bills braintrust needs to look him in the eye when they interview him and decide whether he will be the man they need to use his big body consistently the way we want. He can take vacations sometimes and it will be fine because the opponents will not know when he is taking a play off and will need to dt him. However, if he only plays hard half the time, he will be ineffective because opponents can risk that he is off in a manger on the enxt play. However, if like Sam Adams when we got him he suddenly was there 66-75% of the time he can become a pro bowler. B. What the docs say is critical. There are complaints of him suffering some recurring nagging injuries in his lower body. The Bills docs proved their stuff making a great call on the ability of WM to recover physically. Some folks rag on Haloti mercilessly on this board, but because they have not seen him face to face to gauge whether the recent death of his Mom (word has it that unlike MW who suffered a meltdown when the Grammy who raised him died, Haloti has responded to these unfortunate events by working harder than he ever worked as a kid in school) and him entering the adult world has made a change in him to not go on vacation so much assessments by mere fans based on his college play strike me as pretty worthless compared to what the Bills braintrust will intuit from talking to him. In addition, to outside commentators being easy to ignore about assessing his effort, they also are pretty easily ignored regarding health issues unless they are his doctors. I do not know either what kind of man Haloti will turn out to be, but I do have trust in the Bills docs and their record of good diagnosis of players in the past and also of Marv who was a real idiot on the football field with his brief adoption of the single wing and some qustionable redzone calls. However, he easily made up for these deficits by being a wonderful delegator and leader of a very diverse Bills team to 4 straight SBs. If they take Haloti great, but if they pass on him great as well. My guess is that the braintrust looked him in the eye and the docs poked. prodded and looked and they will make a reasonable choice to pick him or pass. Huff also is a reasonable choice if we make it. but given that safeties rarely go as high as #8 and the general sense this is a pretty strong draft at S, if Huff is the best choice my advice is to trade down because we can find a player better than Wire further down and we need the help anyway.

Speaking of using stats to support any point, a real and fair assessment of Price's time in Buffalo if it is going to invest in the fiction of merely ignoring 2002 as an aberration (it is simply a fiction to arbitratily throw this year out as an aberration because convenient or not for your argument it did happen in reality) should look at his production during his time here. Rather than 2002 simply being dismissed as an averration it is pretty consistent with the progress of his career here. If you look at Price's 4 years he actually improved in yardage, receptions and TDs each year. The case can easily be made that the aberration in fact was Price's lack of production in AT. My sense is that if one is looking for an explanation of his lack of AT production it more likely is: 1. Though his numbers are clearly those of a productive #2 WR, he is not really a go-to guy as a #1 WR. Fortunately, the Bills will use him as a #2 WR at the most and if he is on the backside of his career it is probable that Parrish will beat him out and in fact he will be used as a 3rd WR. I have few problems with having my #3 being Price who if his speed is anywhere near where it was he will eat nickel backs for lunch. 2. I think Price never really was a good match with the talents of Michael Vick. The Price game was all about beat the CB with his first steps or if the CB plats deeo in anticipation of a fly pattern cut off the route and receive a quick pass and go for RAC. Vick is all about looking to run if he has a chance which allows the CB to play back to nullify PP speed and if Vick is looking to run possibly the likely hood of him dumping it off to PP when he turns it in is not likely. In particular, Price benefited from single coverage as Moulds often commanded a double-team, if PP is the #1 you double him by playing a CB in press coverage (cutting off any dump off to him) and double him deep with the corner or safety watching Vick to see if he runs and watching PP to see if he beats the press coverage. 3. If one is looking to throw out any PP year as an aberration you have a far better candidate with his paltry numbers with Dallas last yearas there is good reason playing behind several WRs he simply was not going to get much PT unless his production demanded it. My sense is that PP is not #1 material so it is little surprise he did not freelance his way into the Boys lineup. Will PP be a reliable #2 for the Bills? Who knows for sure until we see how he teams with Ecans, but given he had year off in essence last year to heal any wounds he got in AT and the Bills docs have a pretty good record of diagnosing the severitty and recoverability of injuries (see WM) there is not an unreasonable chance that Price MAT actually become a valuable #2 and actually a pretty good chance he will be useful as a #3. If anything the big questions at WR are whether Evans has the middle of the field ability that Moulds had (has no fear and the abilility to make the occaisional circus catch) and thus commands a double team with his speed which will help make better WRs out of Parrish and Price, Parrish looked good for a rookie but he also will have to avoid having the awful sophmore slump which Josh Reed had after a productive rookie season for him. As long as Price is healthy I think he can do the job to be a #2 or #3 WR for us.

If Hawk falls to #8 this team will be helped most if we run (not walk since we only have 15 minutes) and trade down to some team salivating to get him and pick up at least a couple of extra first day choices or one extra first day choice and a first next year. This is in addition to us trading first round positions this year. I think Hawk is a great player and likely to immediately start whereever he goes. However, we are contractually committed in terms of cap hir and dollar value to TKO, Fletch, and Crowell getting LB starter money from us. We even havePosey under contract for starter level LB money and we may well have to cut him and endure his dead space even without a move. We also have aolid back-ups with contractual cap commitments to Haggan and Stamer on the outside. We would get a great player in AJ Hawk if we drafted him, but we would do great damage to our true goal for getting as many Ws as quickly as possible if we drafted Hawk at 8. Not only does he set this team back this year by having Ralph spend huge money for someone to sit on the bench (he has shown he hates that) but we also set this team back this year and potentially another year because we pass on getting 1st round talent who can fill one of out actual current roster holes. AJ Hawk is a trenmendous player who would be a tremendous pick for the Bills, but he would be good for the 2007 or 2006 LA Bills because this team might be out of here after we got through a 3-14 season with a good or at least adequate LB sitting on the bench and no one on our current roster capable of playing DT next to Triplett or SS for us. Its probably Coy Wire who is rooting hardest for Hawk to fall to #8 and for us to take him. My dream scenario is for us to scare Detroit so much we are going to take Huff that they trade us value merely to swithc positions. This triggers a scenario where we end up trading 2 oe 3 times in the first and get extra value and still draft Bunkley.

Folks seem to love to take a stance that a result is either 100% good or 100% bad and they also seem to feel like everyone has the same preferences they do, when neither thing is the case. If your primary drive is to get Ws, then having a majority of home games late is great news. Global climate change aside, teams are going to visit our house in colder and likely wintry weather. If on the other hand, attendance issues are your main worry, then the uncertainties of winter weather and the need for a significant chunk of fans committing to drive 2 hours (or +) to the Ralph makes the large number of late home games dicey. However, the other wildcard in this is that while an old man like Felser may be reluctant to brave the cold at home games, attending in the teeth of winter is actually a bonus to may young or psychptoc Bills fans. I think the warm weather has actually turned lots of my fellow Buffaloanians into wimps (hey why close schools if the snowfall is less than 8 inches) but I regularly have seen on TV (and sometimes at the game but to admit, this old body is a wimp who likes it that the toilet is but a few steps from the TV when I feel like taking a whiz and I stop by the fridge on the way back to reload anyway) many plucky fans who are barecheste in the snow. My sense is that the bigger issue for the Bills is the need to be competitive and we have the challenge of starting with two games on the road. If this team is winning, I see no problem filling the stadium regardless of when the game is scheduled. Even if the team is losing, if the Bills staff works hard selling the product and Ralph buys a coupkle of thousand tickets if they remain, we can sell the box out every game just as we have before against fairly lame opposition.

I thought it was a 30 day moratorium on you or anyone else who is bothered by these posts reading them. If you don't like posts then do not read them. This approach would seem to be totally effective as best as i can tell. In addition, to your not reading these threads, it would also seem to be a flawed strategy your are pursuing if you post replies in these threads. My suggestion is that you can effectively protest these threads by not letting the door hit you on the way out.

These points really present a superficial examination which does not match some good posts you have done in the past. I think it is clear that if one ones to try to make the broad general claim that TD neglected developing the OL rather than the more focused point that TD neglected the OL in the single area of the draft, then one needs to also include an analysis of TD, FA, UDFA and trade OL acquisitions. I can see why you might skip over this point because it simply is more complex and nuanced than the claim you made of TD not picking a bunch of OL players on the first day as though that somehow totally reflects a commitment to OL development. If anything, I think TD actually showed quite a bit of commitment to the OL on dradt day (and perhaps too much as I disagree with their seeming strategic choice of drafting players late they planned to train into great OL players rather than trying to buy at least one FA stud OL player). Though they did draft 3 WRs while only drafting 2 OL players on the first day, overall, they did draft at least 1 and usually 2 OL players each draft. As Evans is a stud, Reed is still on the team and Parrish is too early to draw a conclusion I think it is hard to say that the Bills were idiots to draft these three WRs when they took them. Further, if you want to poo-poo their selection of OL guys on the 2nd day, it makes more sense to fault them for draft OL late and develop them strategy rather than make the false claim they were ignoring any effort to reload at OL as the team demonstrated a clear history of drafting second day players and developing them into players who got to start (again a measure of a flawed strategy rather than of them neglecting the position. If you want to make such broad claims and present a convincing case then you need to go a lot deeper in your analysis.

You are right on target Task. The foolish thing here for anyone really making draft choices would be to fall for the notion that there is an either/or choice between workout stats and college production. Both are factors which are significant and should be evaluated in light of a players' showings in the other (and other areas). A player can have monstrous workout numbers but a good professional evaluator will not evaluate a player highly solely on his Combine production, but also if a player put up impressive numbers in college against Division 8BBB teams but had lousy workout numbers then a good evaluator would also downgrade his "real" college production numbers. There certainly are folks like Mike Mamula who were workout warriors that foolishly were picked in the 1st due to the hype and they flamed out completely. Hpwever, there are also players like Jason Peters who had so-so college production and good workout numbers (though he had lousy Wonderlic scores) who all teams were scared off from in the draft but the Bills were smart enough to sign him as a UDFA, evaluate that he was capable of being an NFL starter at OT where he never played or produced at all in college and now he is our RT starter. Certainly one can have the pseudo argument on this internet site based on a false premise and given this false choice I would also tend to choose career production over glossy combine numbers, but when it comes down to what I hope my team really does it would be to both give an appropriate weight to combine showings and to college production. Though I am happy to take the college production side in the false dichotomy presented in this thread, when it comes down to evaluating what the Bills do in real life, i will probably be quite happy to see them take a Combine mutant who had lousy college production numbers if there is a credible case to be made that his college used a scheme which did not fit this player's talents or he had college coaches who did not have the skill that his pro coaches will have.

But certainly the press reports (certainly not a totally accurate figure in general and dreadfully wrong in many cases so please check them with multiple sources if you wish to swear by them, but even though they are inaccurate they are the best figures we have unfortunately) that one of the hallmarks of being a Bills fan is that they do in fact charge the lowest ticket prices in the league. Thus, when you make an assumption that that in the seven other road game with the Bills that the the prices are about the same you may well be wrong, As best as I can tell, Ralph is correct to worry about whether a franchise owned by a future owner will be relatively econmically viable is a real concern (the key phrase here is relatively because again as best as I can tell a Bills team under a new owner without the benefit of the $ transfer from teams in high revenue market will still be profitable, just ore relarively as profitable as the Bills would be in a higher revenue market). However, the reason the Bills will be relatively less viable is that any new owner (including a super rich one) would not be able to and woukld be economically dumb to buy the team from Ralph's heirs without taking out massive loans- even Tom Golisano does not have $600-750 million under his mattress to buy the Bills and will have to take out huge loans to do this, Any new owner of the Bills would not only lose the $10-15 million a year in revenue sharing but will also have expanded costs for the team in debt service. While it seems quite farfetched from the numbers I have seen to claim the Bills will lose money while Ralph is still alive. When Ralph dies there will be a large enough tax on his massive estate it is hard to imagine how his heirs pay this cost without selling the team (they will still make out like bandits financially so its hard to feel sorry for them getting a bunch of cash for not working hard at all or contributing anything to society) and also the new owner will bear far more substantial costs than Ralph who has no debt service for purchasing the team whatsoever. Nevertheless, the strange thing here is that it would seem that Ralph could still take unilateral action if he so chose to greatly reduce the tax hit on his heair by substantially loweing the value of the team by contractually constraining it from being able to move. I think Kelly F&B has the right cut on this geneally in terms of the finances and what appears to be going on here is that Ralph is in essence crying wolf to force a great deal for the Bills. Again as best as i can tell I support Ralph completely if this is what he is doing as it will benefit me greatly as a Bills fan to keep the team here by NYS taxpayers ponying up some corporate welfare for the Bills and in return they contractually bound to Buffalo. Further, if this extortion effort by Ralph results in greater profits for the Bills and them being contractually bound here by the state getting the cheaper loans it can get than the private sector to build a new stadium in Buffalo, my home city would also benefit from this corporate welfare payment.

Clumpy can provide info on what the real rules are, but my belief is that the tender is merely a base salary offer and if he is beaten out in pre-season he gets cut and their is no cost to the Bills. The team does not even tender and offer to a player that they judge to have no chance to make the team and thus they do not waste their time or his. The Bills WR situation after Evans is wide open as to who gets PT. The Bills may well keep 6 WRs and between Evans, Parrish, Reed, Aiken, Price, Davis and Smith there are 7 candidates for these 6 jobs and Fast Freddy is simply on the bubble to compete. The longer term contracts and the bonuses received by the other seven make it unlikely he will get a job, but he is merely an injury away from being on this roster.

Losman defifibitely needs to prove himself, but the key to this strikes me as being that the stabdard of production he has to achieve will be noticably less than that Holcomb would have to produce to get the nod over JP. If JP shows some upside and potential development, actually venal sins in his play like the team losing will get put aside in the hopes that continues play will result into JP developing for the future. Holcomb on the other hand gets no future cushion. He and the team will need to win and win immediately or he sits. Nall really is a wildcard in this. If he suceeds he plays and has little margin for error as I think the Bills patience with him getting the ball rather than the clipboard will need him putting up some glossy numbers in pre-season.

Even if you want to take what Ralph says as the truth at face value, an estimate that the Bills are going to lose money this year (as apparently some bozo in the Buffalo News said today) or even in 2 years as you seem to theorize for some reason, this is not what Ralph is saying at all. His alarm bells are about the Bills not being economically viable at some undefined point in the future. Two years is the future, but there is nothing in Ralph's own words that would take this fastest possible meaning of years as being what he was talking about. Again, if you look specifically at what Ralph is saying it is that when he sales the team (either by choice or because the celestial forces call him upstairs) he expresses concern that this new future owner will not be able economically viable in Buffalo because they will not qualify for payment from the higher revenue teams. If this calculation is important then the team actually may be economically viable with this cost sharing payment even when he dies. Unless you are Ralph's doc and know something we do not know or your insider sources have word from God, I do not even think he is talking about leaving this world in the next two years (it may happen and Ralph should plan for this, but he is talking about the future. There are no indications whatsoever that the Bills are going to lose money this season or even in the next two. This reality is probably true even if Ralph dies. I think one false assumption that Ralph has allowed to stand is that there is a real difference between the Bills being economically unviable on an absolute basis and economically unviable on a relative basis. The diference between these two formulations is that under a new owner, the measure of success for the new owner may well not be whether the Bills make an absolute profit (which I think they are assured of doing under the new CBA actually( but whether this profit relative to what a franchise can make in a new market attracts them to move. Under the new CBA, the Bills are guaranteed to receive their share of 40.5% of the gross total receipts of the league. While they will be relatively less well off than the higher revenus teams, as the cap is set at only 59.5% of the total revenue the Bills can only lose money is their relative earning compared to the higher revenue teams is lower than the employees cut of this income. I have seen no numbers that indicate this will be the case and clearly is not the case with the higher revenue teams writing a check to the lower revenus teams to share the profits. If you want to point to the lack of real numbers for us fans, the actual case is that there has been no demonstration whatsoever of how the Bills will lose money this season or in the near future while Ralph is still alive. In fact, there is a reasonable case to be made from what Ralph says that the Bills willl still make an absolute profit for the forseeable future, but under a new owner that person might chose to move the team to make even higher profits elsewhere.