Pyrite Gal

More important where does this leave the Bills. In better shape most likely. We are in the market for a back-up RB for WM. As we do not want a frontlinr, the draft is a pretty reasonable shot for getting someone who will be in a position to be broken in slowly rather than starting right away. I'm pleased to see these teams who had RB needs lock up their starter as it reduces the possibility they may reach for a draft RB who might be a late first day choice at best and instead take him early hoping that he will be come the next Alexander or Green.

The negotisting tactic which Upshaw used was to compare not what the players receive over the life of the contract offered versus a comparison to (some non-existent) extension of the current CBA over 6 years, but compares what the players get today to the next two years under the offered deal. Upshaw's specific words: Under our previous cap agreement, we got just less than 60 percent of all of the revenues. The NFL now wants us to cut that percentage to less than 57 percent. Given the enormous revenue growth the NFL is experiencing, I am not about to give back gains which we have made in the past. It is clear to me that we will do much better under our current CBA in 2006 and particularly in 2007, the uncapped year," Upshaw said. While Upshaw's cut on this is clearly a negotiating tactic and thus not the full truth, his comparison to what the players have agreed to get in the next two years to what the players will get over the first two years of the offered deal and not as you do comparing it to what they would get over the life of the CBA seems to be at least a ratiional comparison even if it is simply putting the deal in the best light for his negotiating. Even to the extent he is not fully accurate, his calculations seem more rational and accurate than the comparison you are making. He compares two years to two years while you compare 6 years of receipts to what they would get under 2 years of the current deal and a ficttitious four year's of additional agreement that does not exist.

I disagree in that the deal for Bledsoe was an outstanding deal for the Bills AT THE TIME. The mistake was not getting him compared to the available alternatives: A. Stick with what the direction at QB Butler and Ralph left us (which was AVP as your starter after the TC/Hobert/RJ/DF debacles) B. Pick up an available FAs (folks like Jeff Bl;ake and Chris Chandler) as your starter. C. Draft a QB of the future but the future starts right now (Harrington). If you see some better option AT THE TIME in the real world then please enlighten us. the mistake we made was to extend Bledsoe's contract in 04 when we should have cut him while it was a wash after he pulled off a very good 02 (8-8 record after our 3-13 season) but had a disastrous performance in 03. Even regarding looking beyond what the Bledsoe deal meant for our occurences, consider his effects on the Pats. 1. Before you give them much credit for bucking the superstar trend by cutting Bledsoe, remeber that it was Lewis;s hit which collapsed Bledsoe's lung which actually caused them to "decide" to look beyond this superstar. If anything, they made the no-brainer choice to go with their young superstar brady rather than their old superstar Bledsoe (who by the way did play QB and throw the winning TD in a must-win game during their first SB run). 2. Cutting Bledsoe almost certainly played a key role in this dynasty failing to even make the playoffs the year they cut him as his accelerated cap hit forced them to be unable to replicate their actions which coincided with an SB win the year before of acquiring some good vet talent as they acquired 15+ players after the cap cut in the year of their first SB. I am not saying Bledsoe is a good player (though he is probably a lock for the HOF having racked up good stats through longevity, having rehabbed his career twice after getting cut, and having unlike Marino having an SB winners ring he earned in the must win game to boot), I'm saying that the facts show he was a goof acquisition by this 3-13 team that would have upgraded by getting even a marginal QB. P.S. As far as your NFLPA point you are correct that they need to serve the less rich players in addition to serving the more rich players. However, simply taking any deal does not serve the players. What serves them in this competitive system is for the NFLPA to push the team owners to the edge without falling off themselves. Its a tough racket but certainly with the tentative word of a deal for 59.5% of total revenues, though it a'int over til its over, things look pretty good in terms of NFLPA representation and strategy.

I think the meeting location is most determined by the average air temperatures for this date in NFL cities.

However, understanding the whole complex financial picture explains why actually the NFLPA seems to be siding more with the low-revenue teams than with the greedy minority. Upshaw represents the interests of BOTH the high salaried players who actually would do best individually if the NFLPA decertified itself and there was a free-market with no salary cap and no nothing but free will and caveat emptor and also the lower-salaried, marginal and even retired players who have garnered more wealth than they though possible given their intellectual skills and talents. Rather than simply siding with the greedy minority, the NFLPA is using the threat of decertifying itself and forcing a free-market upon the NFL which ultimately would diminish the quality of the product (aka kill the goose laying the golden egg) as leverage to extort (lawfully bargain) for benefits which will deliver benefits to all the players (minimum salary, pension plans, the salary cap, etc). There still will be a need for a NFLPA even without an agreement with the team owners and decertification of the union as a bargaining agent. There are a variety of service all players really can use which it is morst cost-effective to provide by consolidation. In addition, their is a policing and rating of agents mechanism which would become even more important in a free-market. While the NFLPA would survive in the state of nature of a true free- market it would become a very different beast.

The smaller revenue teams (a better phrase actually than smaller market beecause it is more accurate in describing the lay of the land in this dispute) correctly judge that the NFLPA is better seen and enlisted as an ally in their real battle with the high revenue teams. The low revenue teams would get relatively killed if they trained their effort on beating down the NFLPA rather than focusing on what is best for their business model which is to use the NFLPA as leverage to force the large revenue teams to pay back the welfare payment made to them in the NFL G3 program where the NFL subsidized the larger revenue teams to the tune of $700 million bucks in loans they used to get stadium deals.

Invsting in yet another QB of the future and certainly the idiocy of cutting Losman now would be like playing the NY Lotto as an investment strategy. Certainly one's dreams for the future would have a heightened kick about what you would do if the new investment paid off, but the chances of it doing so are not a lot larger that what you have currently. Even worse, trading up to get Leinart, Young or Cutler (or even drafting them at 8) would be like buying a lottery ticket that costs a gazillion $ instead of 1 buck. The costs of passing on getting the trench help we need with the #8 (not to mentioned the added cost of trading up) are so huge that it would be dumb to do. Even if we got a player who guarantteed would produce like Peyton Manning for us, with our lackluster DT and OL situation we would get exactly the same number of SB berths from this QB pick as Manning has delivered for Indy. We would also likely get a lot fewer playoff berths because we do not have the OL and freney's a team needs to even make the playoffs led by a Manning.

Exactly! Many posters need to recognize that while Upshaw is far from a saint (actually he is not paid to be a saint) he is not the only or even the lead issue or problem here. The big issue is that small revenue vs, large revenue markets are really operating different business models and have yet to develop a single model for the NFLPA to negotiate with. It's comples, a moving target and difficult to understand and that's fine we are all in the same boat. Its simply silly that some folks chose to not acknowledge reality or their own lack of understanding of this quandary and make rediculous statements that so and so is a tard.

An article is currently on ESPN.COM at > http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2354095 < which explains the complicated financing involved. Among other things it explains why the small-market teams want the big market teams to actually pay back a return on an investment that the smaller market teams made to the bigger markets in the early 90s and earlier. If one chooses to read the article and understand it as best one can, then folks can begin to understand that this is far more complex than a simple dispuite between the millionaire players on one side and billionaire owners on the other side. It is at least a three way dispute between the NFLPA, but more directly between old guard owners in smaller markets like Ralph (who bought in at 10K years ago) and Dan Rooney (whose Dad bought in at $2500) and folks like McNair in TX who bought in at $700 million. The article accurately describes these folks as really participating in different businesses fiancially (x. it strikes some folks as simply a poor deal that Indy gets only $1 miilon/year for naming rights to its stadium because folks like Bob Kraft have sured over $19 million to name the Pats stadium after gillete. Meanwhile the concept that Cincy fogoes any naming revenue for Paul Brown stadium and Ralph fogoes any money for our stadium is simply weird). Posts whcih simply try to claim that the problem here is Upshaw does not know what he is doing actually demonstrate that the poster just does not understand the economics here.

No. I do not think folks should celebrate this at all. However, I think that some posters might want to at least acknowledge reality that their brickbats were incorrect and unwarranted. One of the problems in our society strikes me as extremism. There needs to be some other choices besides total celebration or total detonation because usually reality involves some moderation.

A few posters here have berated NFLPA leadership as "tards" and other negative comments about their negotiating and work on this issue. It a'int over til its over, but if this deal works out as presented I hope some of these folks are person enough to eat crow and join us all in celebratting a renewed era of labor partnership and peace.

I think you need to get out your own calculator and refigure things based on two legitimate ways of calculating the same #s. I would neither take Upshaw's nor NFL buy Henderson's cut on the numbers as either a totally legitimate way of doing the calculation or even to be an honest cut since both are simply putting the same numbers in the best light for them. If you want a real world sense of this that makes sense to most folks consider this the same as negotiations that go on with buying a car from a dealer. Us consumers often have to show a willingness to walk out the door before the dealer automagically comes back with a deal better than his rock bottom offer. Take another look at this before getting your panties all up in a wad.

Given the advances inf financial payout for the entire NFL under the labor peace of the past two decades, continuing labor dispute that blocks a labor deal is bad news for the NFL.] Given a general sense that the quality of the product has improved also in the last two years this is bad news in the long-run. However, based on what I can see this is good news for the football prospects of the Bills in the short-term/ The Bills are in a much better position within the division of dealing with the no deal cap level of $94 million. Both the Fins and the Jets are well above this cap number and will have to make massive cuts in the next few hours to make this level. As both teams like the Bills are in rebuilding mode, the fact that they will need to move backwards simply makes their task more difficult and there is a pretty good chance the Bills can clean=up on these two division opponents next year unless they do everything right and we do lots of things wrong. The overall cap situation of NE is not as flexible as ours as best I can tell (I do not have detailed knowledge). Gowever, given that they had to cut money in the bank kicker Vinateri merely to make the restricted cap and the slicing of numerous contracts of guys pivotal to an SB win will almost certainly be necessary, unless someone can explain to me how the Pats coherently maintain themselves under a constrained cap I like the Bills situation. It will not be easy for us. However, we have some shopping money in what should be a traget rich environment for players to rebuild the OL, DTs.and SS slots. The major bills cut likely to come in former #1 WR Moulds, but assuming Evans is poised to become #1 WR, Paeeish as #3 and a target rich environment for a #2 WR, I like our prospects.

Many thanks. I think from our standpoint, the first thing is playoff implications of impact on teams within our division. The if we want to get wilder in our drerams there are implications for teams in our conference for wildcard opponents and going deep in the playoffs. Finally implications for NFC teams and SB opponents (hah). In the end, the better TEAM will win and you have to do well with whatever you got. Less talented teams who want it more win all the time so Marv needs to make good choices whatever cards he is dealt. However, on the face of it, it appears that the implications of having a lower cap figure will be good for the Bills. From this list (which by definition will change drastically based on who is cut) this strikes me as the implications: 1. Winning the division- NYJ and MI are already immeminently beatable (and so are we), but the cap situations are very different and while these two teams will have to make drastic cuts merely to stay at the same level of talent, the Bills likely will have to cut Moulds but Evans is set to be our new #1 WR probably even if Moulds stays. I think we will have many opporttunities to buy a solid #2 WR to team with Evans and Parrish, NE is in OK shape cap wise, but already the loss of dead certain Vinateri to get to this point wounds them far greater than any of the cuts the Bills were forced to make. 2. Getting a wildcard- If it comes to this, a couple of potential opponents the SD Chargers and the Jags look well positioned cap wise. However, the other opponents who might be good should have weaker teams after cuts and the teams which have the cap room to shop are not strong teams. We'll see.

In the long run it certainly will hurt the MFL product badly if the rich owners and the poor owners (that is to say poorer owners as even the poor guys are 100 millionaires rather than billionaires) and there is no new CBA how will that impact the Bills. There will be a salary cap for the 2006 season at 94 million though 2007 will be uncapped. I know that both NYJ and the Fins are way over even that number and will have to some fearsome cutting in a short period of time. NE I believe (though I have not checked so please correct me if I am wrong) is about even but will not be in much of shopping position and has had to cut Stalwarts like Vinateri even to get where they are. With a cut of Moulds, the Bills on the other hand will be in shopping mode with a healthy, (though not league leading(. $10 mill under the cap. At any rate I am not sure about the whole of the NFL (perhaps Clumpy or someone else can enlighten us) but I am wondering whether it may not heft up our chances of making the playoffs next year considerably if the cap is the lower one which comes with no deal.

I agree the NFL is filled with levity, but it is more from the large market teams than the small market teams.

Gene Upshaw must be a pretty cool dude!

I can believe it. Big Mike was chopped by the Bills for the twin reasons of non-performance and a contract that demanded performance from a #4 drafted player. They would have actually loved to have kept him at half of his contract and probably a bit more, but he was an easy cut for us to make with his 06 cap hit or even a lower hit over 50% of his current contract but still more than the maximum the CBA allows a contract to be cut. He will sign on with another team having pocketed the bonus from the Bills which will allow him to sign an FA contract for chump change from another team in salary but big incentive numbers based on the number of starts or simply remaining on the roster of his new home. He should be a desirable FA because with an incentive laden contract the price will be right for a young OL player who had motivational issues and initial coaching by Vinky and Ruel

Upshaw leaving does move the negotiations forward as best as I can tell from the press reports. Yhe actual negotiations occuring right now are between the majority of the owners who are willing to accept a deal that the NFLPA wants which will give them around 60% of the total gross receipts. They are at odds with a minority of owners apparently comprised of folks like Dan Snyder who have more $ than anyone and will not take the around 60% deal apparently because he refuses to be pushed into something even if it guarantees him big profits since he already has $ to burn. In addition the minority party of owners apparently has folks like Jerry Jones driving it because in addition to being rich he simply objects to being pushed into anything (even if it gives him a lot of profits. Ny leaving town and declaring things over Upshaw gives the majority faction of owners more leverage to try to beat down folks like Snyder and Jones.

They are not entitled to a % of total revenues it at all. They have no right to a certain level of compemsation at all. However, they do have a right to organize as the NFLPA if they choose to or to decerttify the NFLPA as their bargaining agent and instead simply negotiate individually in the free market if they choose to. The owners also have a right to bargain individually in the free market if they choose to OR in our society they have the right to offer financial inducements to the players to form an entity such as the NFLPA to negotiate with the team owners. The players assert no right whatsoever to receive a % of the total revenue. However, as Americans under our system they do have a right to accept or reject an offer from the team owners to bargain together as the NFLPA or to reject any offer that they do not judge meets their hoals and instead negotiate in a free market. Do you object to any of these rights?

Naw, I'm too busy writing long posts to worry about a blow up doll.

It ain't over until its over and the bottom could still drop out and lead to the owners, the players and all us fans getting screwed. However, I really am impressed with the tactical advantage that the NFLPA has created in this situation and how they have managed things since they grasped victory from the jaws of getting their butt kicked by the team owners in the mid-80s lockout. 1. The NFLPA was essentally busted in the mid-80s as the owners proved strong enough and the players broke apart in the mid-80s lockout. Ed Garvey, the NFLPA head rolled the dice demanding 52% of the gross and the team owners slapped him down and he got fired by the players as the owners locked out the players in mid-season. The replacement games were not a good product, but players stopped getting checks they were counting on and were reminded each week that the replacement stiffs were getting paid. Even worse for the NFLPA, with limite competition among the networks and millions rather than billions at stake, the good ol' boys of the NFL were able to talk the good ol' boys of the networks into hanging in there presenting the less than good product until the NFLPA broke. 2. However, I'd love to hear the story of how Upshaw and the NFLPA leadership decided upon the strategy of threatening to decertify as a bargaining agent and forced the team owners to have to confront the possibility that they might have to compete in a free-market for player talent. This threat was key and the team owners seemed to fall over themselves to reach a complex agreement (the CBA) under which the NFL and the NFLPA would join together to restrain trade for individual players through mechanisms like the player draft and joint lawsuits against college age men who wanted to sale their services in the free-market. Other major sports such as the NBA, MLB and the NHL have developed programs and approaches which give college age men (and even minors above the age of 15 in some cases with parental approval) the right to sell their services in the marketplace. With the partnership between the NFL and NFLPA, pro football has somehow found a way to restrain trade and shut the door not only on kids but also on college age men. The bonus for this has been that the NFL gets other fiscal agents and also the government (through state colleges) to give them a massive subsidy in training and developing pro athletes. This really is economically sweet from the NFL partnershps perspective, its actually no wonder that the team owners fell all over themselves to make this bargain with the NFLPA. 3. Add to this the NFLPA secured a number of agreements as far as the timing of the renegotiation and the resulting status of players which provide them with a large tactical advantage: A. The timing of the mid-80s lockout was a killer for Ed Garvey. By locking players out in mid-season they hit the players directly as they were losing paychecks they were counting on and from the more well-paid players who were losing 10s of thousands of dollars each week to the lowly paid players who were hit even harder losing thousands each week a critical mass of players got restless. By moving the neogitation point to Marcg, the NFLPA is less subject to internal descent as the players won't miss game checks or even pre-season stipends until much later. In fact, the NFL draft in April represents a brickwall where the owners must have a deal or havoc ensues. B. The player demographics also greatly aid the NFLPA. In the mid-80s you had athletes even taking serious part time jobs in the off-season not simply to build a future career (if they were smart enough to do this which many pampered athletesare not) but to make some bucks to make their fiscal ends meet. Now, the NFLPA negotiated a minimum salary of roughly $300K/year and even the most marginal players have a nest egg which allows them to hang tough in negotiation unless they grossly mismanage their money like a Henry. In addition, the NFLPA put into place a pension system which athletes who play a mere 5 years qualify for and this has provided greater security to athletes (though it is not enough $ to set them for life) allowing them to hang in there a bit when the negtiations get nasty. In addition, they have built the NFLPA with a history and legacy that allows current young players to feel part of a greater whole, see what their future looks like and gets them thinking about the benefits of the whole rather than simply themselves. While this is not guarantee of loyalty to the NFLPA at all, it helps them remain solid. C. In addition to the NFLPA being stronger, the team owners also have schisms under the new system which make it harder for them to remain unified. While the old guard of the Rooney's and Halas' could lead and maintain unified discipline among the team owners in the mid-80a. You now have independently wealthy beyind the Rooney's dream upstarts like Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones that make mere felons like Al Davis look like cooperative guys. One of the more impressive things Upshaw and the NFLPA leadership have done is to make revenue sharing a central part of CBA negotiation. Its amazing that you have workers tellimg owners how to split their profits among each other. By inserting this wedge issue into the negotiation they make it far harder for the team owners to remain unified. Its no wonder that team owners have prohibited discussion of revenue sharing at this weekends meeting, but no matter as it is a palpable subtext which stops the team owners from being unified. It strikes me as actually somewhat amusing (if not simply hilarious in some of the rants) from folks on TSW berating Upshaw (and by proxy the NFLPA leadership as I doubt this was all Upshaw's plan though it is simply impressive he is smart enough to understand and grasp all this even if was a bunch of rich lawyers who developed this approach) The NFLPA is on message and has run a game in these negotiations which has given them a pretty clear tactical advantage in these negotiations. If you do not believe this then note these real world events which are the result IMHO of this tactical advantage: A. The NFLPA has already won public agreement on the big picture. The team owners have already agreed to: The team owners have already agreed to increase the NFLPA take and slice of the pie in gross receipts produced by the NFL. This will move from around 70% of the designated gross which does not include revenue streams such as luxury boxes to 56-6+% of the total revenues. The two sides are merely arguing over the last marginal amount whether it will be 57, 58, or 59 but in the big picture it does not matter (in the little picture it matters a lot becaise even at 1% we are taling about over $100 million) because he workers are going to receive a majority of the total receipts. Not bad at all since under Garvey they were statting at 52% and as the total pool of $ have grown have left that number in the dust. B. Ironically you had Paul Tagliaoo-boo, the NFL CEO and Upshaw saying the same thing as negotiation moved to their final stage. The team owners must share revenues as widely as they can in order for this to work. Rather than this being a fight between the workers and the team owners, this has become a fight between the old guard team owners such as the Rooney's who are making more $ than they though possible by cooperating with the NFLPA and the new guard of independent owners like he Joness' and Snyders. Who would have even imagined when the NFLPA was getting its butt kicked in the mid 80s that we would see a situation when the workers are demanding to tell the owners how to divide their profit and actually a larg majority of the owners are aligned with the NFLPA on this point. C. The networks are sitting this one out for the most part. Back in themid-80s when there were far fewer networks and less $ around, there appeared to be a good ol' boy coffee klatch where the NFL leadership could ask (threaten or they might jump to one of the other networks) the nets to carry the less than good replacement games. By doing this it kept the checks (adjusted I'm sure) flowing into the teams and provided a weekly reminder that the players were missing their checks. No between the advent of far greater competition among the nets and more capital, if the team owners tried to call out the NFLPA, there is a fighting chance they could develop a cash source elsewhere for an alternative product. In addition, if the team owners threatened to leave a network, between products which allow commericals to be sold to a beneficial demograsphic like the X-games and new idiocy like the XFL being able to at least get a shot on primetime, the nets have a shot at alternate product if the team owners get too high and mighty. At any rate, I am quite comfortable flat out saying that I think Gene Upshaw and the NFL leadership has done an outstanding job arranging and being opportunistic about what reality has thrust upon them with creating a great position for them with these negotiations. The timing is great for their position. The ranks of the NFLPA is under less pressure to break and more pressure and opportunity to hang together. Their partner/opponents are split in their approach and the NFLPA leadership is saying things which play up this split (the larger side of this split also wants to go the NFLPA way on all this BTW). Still it ain't done and the folks who can spoil their party are in a position of weakness, but even a weak party may be able to spoil the game despite what a majority of team owners may want to do. A. It takes a super-majority of team owners to approve a deal so I think has few as 8 team-owners can hold up an agreement. Its close though it looks like the folks who would provide the 7-9 votes are waffling pretty badly. B. Folks like Snyder and Jones are rich enough they are not used to being pushed around by anyone. They might rebel even if it does not serve their interests financially because they do no need the NFL $ which they seem to treat as a play thing anyway. However, there are folks like the Rooneys who seem to hold sway in the NFL for whom it was not long ago that the Steelers were one of their chiefsources of revenue. These folks have also matured with the NFL (as seen in efforts like the Rooney Rule) and the smartest thing that the NFLPA has done is create a world in which it is fellow owners like the Rooneys who are facing down the Snyders rather than the players. The NFLPA is playing a heady game and theoretically it canall come crashing down for everyone if the team owners call them out. However, I really doubt that the majority of the owners are going to let the rich owners do this and a deal will get done which splits the baby and gives the players 58% of the gross receipts (or 57% if the players are feeling charitable or 59% if the players want to press home this tactical advantage.

It might well be a good thing for producing a better product depending upon what is developed as an alternative. The operating direction right now is that the big impact of the last work stoppage in the NFL was that the team owners beat the Ed Garvey run NHLPA so bad that he got canned and the best and brightest of the athletes like Upshaw were able to hire some very bright lawyers who understood the fiscal make-up of the NFL. Upshaw took the advice of advisors that the NFL team owners were actually deathly afraid of good ol American competition in the marketplace. When the NFLPA threatened to decertify itself and thus remove the player draft as a mechanism for restraining trade, the team owners stumbled all over themselves in a rush to negotiate the CBA. he draft and the CBA essentially restrains trade by limiting the rights of the best football players in college to negotiate with only one team for a period of up to five years. In exchange for agreeing to restrain trade the NFLPA extorted from team owners a CBA which essentially makes them full partners with the team owners. A lock-out could do a lot to simplify the operations of the NFL by being a vehicle for essentially removing the team owners from the process. Team owners were essential in the early days of the league because folks like George Halas played a ton of roles from GM, to HC, to the prinmary role of provision of capital to accumulate players, get a stadium, agree to rules for consistent operation and presentation. However, over time these on the field and business roles have been outsourced to other individuals and the team owner plays the role of oversight because they provide capital. However, it has become the nature of the U.S. (and international) economy that there are actually lots of sources of capital in this society. A lock-out may be the final blow if there is careful planning by the NFLPA, to replace the owners with other mechanisms like the bond market for generating the necessary capital. The hard part would be that someone would need to be in charge to run the team and its on field operations. I can se a better MFL producing a better product if they just cut out the owner as a middle man and instead run the team as the Green Bay Packers are run. In essence it is members of the community like you and me who own shares of the team. By limiting amount of ownership so no one person or force would have total control, board can be elected by the bondholders who manage the team on a day to day and year to year basis. Generally, the NFL owners like the Rooneys have been pretty good, but I would love a system that got rid of large capital holding idiots like Dan Smyder and Art Modell or Bob Kraft. A lock-out could be the next step in putting a nail in the coffin of not only football owners as public figures but even spread to other sports to get rid of the George Steinbrenners and Marge Schotts.

Its been interesting to me to read a bunch of posts which seem to view the NFL as a struggle between the owners of the league and the players. I think this is an inaccurate perspective because certainly these two parties are locked in fearsome (and probably boring knowing the CBA) negotiations, but I think folks are confusing the fact that since the CBA was agreed to while folks like Ralph certainly are owners of their individual teams this is not the same as the question of who owns the NFL. On a broad basis the customer is always right and we all own the NFL. If suddenly a paying majority of the customers wanted the players to wear tutus while they played then every Sunday would see the game played to the tune of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies (fortunately we customers are not organized enough to make these decisions). However, on a practical basis, just as no one owner owns the NFL and in fact there is no practical group of owners thaat owns the NFL, since the league broke the union for the most part in the mid-80a and the NFLPA threatened to decertify itself (and thus force all the owners to compete in a free-market for athletes), the owners almost fell over themselves developing an agreement with the NFLPA known as the CBA which shared control of the NFL between the owners and players. Most impostant, they agreed to a sliding scale of a designated portion ofthe gross receipts being dedicated to player salaries. This set up a situation within which team owners moved to shift revenue streams from designated areas like ticket sales to undesignated areas like luxury boxes. However, this move did not make a big enough difference as the relative loss of salary was easily made up by the big cash stream of TV revenue. As former Asst. Counsel to the NFL Cirwell noted on NFL Network yesterday, the provision of labor peace made the NFL a far more saleable product to the networks and he chase for dollars between what Cornwell himself called a partnrship between the league and the workers was on. Roughly 20 years of labor peace amidst the rapid growth in the need for TV programming to sell commercials around while at the same time the MLB, NHL and NBA were undergoing workstoppages which canceled the World Series, a massive chunk of an NBA season and a whole year of hockey occured. showed that the new partnership hit the timing correctly. One reasonable way to answer the question of who owns the NFL is to recognize that abstractedly we all do (remeber the customer is always right to make a buck in t his society) but on a practical basis where after the last NFL work stoppage the team owners and the players developed a partnership is to ask the question who is the majority partner. Under the original CBA the players did obtain a numeric aggreement which appeared to outstrip even the 52% of the gross the NFLPA demanded as part of the ED Garvey lockout. The first CBA gave the players a sliding scale of a % of the DESIGNATED gross (DGR). It was a number that started in the mid 50s and capped out in the 70s. The salary cap also required a minimum as well as a maximum payment which was the cap. As it turned out this, even though the team owners worked hard to shift revenue streams from designated areas like general ticket sales to undesignated areas like luxury boxes (for example, even though the capacity of Rich Stadium was drastically reduced, RWS actually got more money sent to his wallet rather than to the players because he used the extra space to convert general ticket revenue he had to share into luxury boxes he kept for himself), this move made no difference because provided a more stable guaranteed product allowed the NFL/NFLPA to get even larger dollars than many dreamed from the networks, Now as the CBA is moving toward renegotiation, I think one effect is that it has become more clear who the majority "owner" of the NFL is. The agreement apparently will change such designation of receipts to the players now getting a piece of total revenues. The % of player take will actually go down from its current lofty levels to something in between 54% and 6+%. However, anyway you cut it, by the % of assets taken in by the NFL it is the NFLPA which will easily take in a majority of these assets. The amount of money brought in will be so high and there are so few owners to split it among that even taking a minority of the total assets, the team owners will still make a mint. However, it is this this larger group (but still a relatively small number of people) that are card carrying members of the NFLPA who will get a majority of the assets produced by the NFL. On an even more practical long term basis majority gain of assets does not make these real "owners" of the NFL. Player careers are short and they do not own the naming rights to the team or rights to its paraphenalia beyond temporary agreement. However, in a real way it is the players who are the majority owners the NFL and through their entity the nFLPA they exercise at least strong influence (or essentially control based on the view of those of us who see the lunatics running the asylumI a plethora of day to day functional issues in the NFL like enforcement of drug use policy etc. So before folks claim that the team owners have all the rights because they own the league, take note of the fact that since the modern CBA was developed we have seen unprecedented cooperation between the players and owners to run this league. If one chooses to measure % ownership by what % of the received assets do they get then the NFLPA members receive a majority of the assets. If one chooses to measure % ownership by making a guesstimate about much influnece or control does a party have over working and business conditions, there is a reasonable argument to make here that thw NFLPA is an equal (if not majority) owner in this regard also. In theory, a party outside of the team owners themselves should have no ability tp demand that the team owner assets be divided a particular way. Yet, the reality is that the NFLPA though its elected leaders Gene Upshaw has made a establishment of revenue sharing (Pete Rozelle must be up there smiling about the key demand of the players more revenue sharing by the team owners. Revenue sharing has made the NFL general recognition as the best run major sports league while the near free-market MLB struggles to bring about some form of revenue sharing). Folks may rail at windmills that the reality of partnership between the workers and owners ain't right or that the restraint of trade practiced by both parties in the draft and in lawsuits against folks like Maurice Clarett is wrong. But it is simply reality. The reality is hat the lunatics are full partners in running the asylum and the result of NFL play is IMHO the best run major sports league in the world.

Actually, I think we could attract a reasonable # of FAs. 1. Beyond the top dollar athletes who in essence are at the owner level of compensation (the Gretzky's, Lemieuss, and Jordans) even a small market team like the Bills can compete at the level of paying $1o million a year (the moulds cap hit which we do not want to do, probably will not have to do but can in the current economics without the salary cap constraint). Ralph can actually afford to get some top drawer help. In the end, we are talking about a short career and money talks. I have fw doubts we can attract enough top flight athletes here to do a few years in the cold for big bucks. Ralph's moola is as green as anybody else's and is part of the reason Pro Bowlers like Spikes who could have gone anywhere came here. 2. Being on a winner or a loser is not prohibitive as it currently things are so close athletical;ly that the move from worse to first (or vice versa) can easily happen within a contract much less a career. Many of today;s athletes grew up watching the Bills and the 49ers win in the 80s and early 90s and actually have an affinity for these teams which is not merited bv their current performance. I think we can attract some good players here if the money is right. 3.Athletes have grown up being big fish wherever they were. Given th choice of being a small fish in a big pond like NYC or LA, or instead being the big fish in our small market town some will prefer out backdrop to towns an urban guy like me (I gre up in Chicao, but my wife drew me here) might prefer. 4. There are big dollars to be made in Buffalo. A player will not be in the medias face as he might be in NYC, but a player can take advantage of modern telecommunications and plane travel to sell their wares everywhere from anywhere. There are certainly more opportunities in a major market and we will definitely loss out on getting some guys whio want to go uptown. However, if RWS will put out the dollars I think that this issue will not be a stopper for us completely or even for the most part.