MattM

If this is true, he'll be a Pat* before the end of the week. They desperately need a pass rush, are converting to the 4-3 and have an extra #1 (Saints) to burn.....

Fins just released Crowder, probably to make room for Burnett, who they're meeting with tonight. If the Fins sign him as we sat (allegedly "needed" to sign our rookies today) all day on him, I won't be a happy camper....

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/07/29/raiders-land-jared-gaither/

We are rapidly running out of options at RT.....

I've also noticed the NFL try to pump up Albert Breer, who seems to be Schefter's replacement at NFLN and who I'm sure, like Shefter before him, benefits from getting early word on things from the League. Nothing like promoting one's own brand.....

Oddly, I find myself agreeing with Mr. WEO on this one. The Pats* locker room and BB's discipline/rep allows them to draft guys like Mallett and get guys like Moss and Haynesworth with less risk than most teams of those guys stepping out of line and becoming a distraction. Must be nice....

If they can sign Tulloch (preferable) or Barnett, then I'm not as concerned about this loss. If not, well, then.....

I posted a NYT link a couple of weeks ago that proved the opposite point over the last 16 years at least--basically teams in the top 3 of payroll for the year in question won the WS 8 out of 16 times, while teams in the bottom half in spending won it twice in that span (and one of those was tied at 15th, as I was being generous in my counting it). If you're a Royals fan for ex. you might win it once every 240 years or so. Have fun with that....

Actually it's the opposite. The new CBA has a higher floor (90%) than the prior deal....

Go read the 2007 NYT interview with her. She sounded like a very good person who poured a lot of her energy and herself into serving others. Condolences to the Kraft family...,

Very sorry to hear this news. My sincere condolences to you and your family. I'll say an extra prayer for your mom tonight....

"Yet, today's owners are great businessmen who struck it rich doing well in other businesses like Snyder or Jerry Jones but as sportsmen they are bad and worse." Actually, I'd wager that at least 1/3rd of today's owners were instead members of Warren Buffet's so-called "lucky sperm club" who simply inherited their teams. Just off the top of my head that list would include the Yorks, McCaskills, Maras, Rooneys, Irsay, Spanos (Jr.), Hunt and Mike Brown. I'm sure there are at least 3-4 more I'm missing, and that doesn't even include guys like Woody Johnson, who didn't inherit the team, but did basically inherit his fortune....

Who plays RT this year? On that point, if he's healthy I'd also take Gaither from the Ravens in addition to Yanda--sounds like they can't resign both....

Many thanks for doing the legwork on this. No time to read the whole opinion, but as suspected, it looks like there was a contractual provision that required the owners to maximize shared revenue. Personally, I agree with Doty on this issue and stand by my original contention that to a reasonably objective jurist it was fairly clear cut. That said, you raise an interesting point about the special master having found in favor of the owners, so it's tough to be definitive without reading all of the briefing papers and hearing the argument.....

Not so fast; it sounds like there's a pretty steep salary floor this year that will force the Bills to spend at least $35-40 million this year. May be good for the Bills short-term, but bad for long-term viability in WNY.....

As noted above, I do this for a living--I'm a corporate/investment attorney working in NYC who helps people with this kind of stuff and have been doing so for a number of years (too large a number than I'd care to admit). While I have not seen the agreement, I can pretty much guarantee you that (a) it was chock full of covenants preventing the owners from doing the kinds of things they did here on this issue and (b) even on the incredibly odd chance that it wasn't, most courts would imply some kind of good faith obligation on the owners to maximize shared revenue in this kind of deal. My money is clearly on (a) considering that the NFL uses folks like Covington & Burling and the NFLPA uses similarly top notch counsel (may have been Proskauer, but I'm not 100% sure on that). That's why it was a no-brainer for Doty, who, BTW, was a Reagan appointee mind you, so it's not like he was some ultra-lefty as you make it sound. Personally, I suspect that he decided repeatedly for the players because he found that the owners could not be trusted and quickly formed an opinion about their "truthiness" as our former President may have said, said initial opinion following them in his dealings with them. I must admit that I find it hysterical that you attack Smith, yet stick up for the owners who have been found by a court to have done scuzzy things. They were also the folks who negotiated the original CBA and then torched it less than 4 years later (real geniuses, eh?), all the while pleading poverty, but refusing to show folks who had a contractual economic interest in this matter (let's not even talk about the incredibly phony "employee" analogy that some folks keep bringing up, ok? You're smarter than that) their books to prove it. Some real winners there, no? As for your damages argument, the networks, too, are a lot smarter than you give them credit for. 5% is an incredibly low chance of losing games, as we have seen having been pushed to the brink here. No way is it good business sense to potentially give away nearly half a billion dollars to someone in the form of "insurance" when they're the ones controlling the likelihood of payout. I'd personally value it at over $100 million minimum myself. Breaking that down on a per player basis reduces the sound of the number, but $100m is not chump change in any situation outside of govt debt or spending.....

OK, I'll play: 1. Re-sign Poz and Florence; ideally Whitner, too, but not if he's asking for more than $4m a year; 2. Ideally sign Tyson Clabo or one of the other prominent RT FA candidates; 3. If go with a cheaper option at RT than Claybo (maybe M. Yanda of B'more, for ex.), then go for Zach Miller at TE. If go cheaper at TE sign one of Kevin Boss, Bo Scaife or Matt Spaeth (in that order); 4. Sign a backup QB--personally, I'd love to see us take a flyer on VY, but suspect they'll stay clear; and finally 5. Pick up 2-3 FA depth guys. 1 on OL and 1 LB a must. That would be my dream offseason. Personally, if they did that and Fitz turns out to be even an avg NFL starter, with a few breaks this team could be competing for a playoff spot in Dec.....

I'm also a Roch guy originally and will be "home" next weekend instead of my usual end of July run. First time I'll have missed TC since they opened it at Fisher (suppressing a sniffle). Still, I'll be happy as a pig in slop if they can get this thing done this week.....

And yours is an extremely pro owners view. I'll try to be briefer than you were-- 1. First, you haven't seen the relevant provisions of the old CBA, but presumably there is something in there that contractually requires the owners to act to maximize revenue to be shared with the players via the TV deals. In the unlikely event there's not, the law may very well fill that term in as part of a party's good faith obligation to its counterparty. Personally, considering the lawyers involved in deals like this, I'd be shocked if there was no such contractual provision. Again, that's why that was probably one of the easiest decisions in Judge Doty's history on the bench; and 2. Secondly, as someone who helps folks negotiate large deals for a living, I can without hesitation tell you that there is indeed a dollars and cents value to the owners' "lockout insurance". You don't get something of that magnitude without giving up some real dinero. Think about it for a second--it was an obligation of the networks to pay $400m in the event that they HAD NO GAMES TO BROADCAST. Let that sink in for a second. No games to make revenue off of, yet they had to fork over $400m. Worse yet, the ability to collect on this insurance through making sure there were no games by (a) canceling the CBA and then (b) forcing a lockout was also in the hands of the folks who stood to be paid the $400m. Holy conflict of interest, Batman! I can guarantee you that the price of this was steep in terms of lost player revenue. The owners have shown multiple times throughout this process that they were not to be trusted. This was one of the most egregious examples. Yet throughout, perhaps because of his "funny name", De Smith was the one who was repeatedly attacked and mocked. Only in post-2008 America.....

As Mickey noted, what the owners did was not buy an insurance policy, but instead screw the players to whom they had a contractual and legal fiduciary duty to maximize shared revenue. By taking a TV deal that still paid the owners in the event of a lockout they left shared money on the table that the players didn't get and thus violated their duty to the players. Easy open and shut case from a pure legal perspective, which is why the owners lost badly on it. There's a huge difference between that and what the players did, which was simply buy insurance to cover the players in the event of a lockout. Nothing at all wrong about that in any way, shape or form. Remember, too, that the players aren't on strike here. They wanted to play under the old CBA. It was the owners who blew up the CBA and forced the lockout. Finally, for someone who's taken such a lot of criticism (any of it racially tinged, I wonder?), that was an incredibly smart and shrewd move by De Smith.....

Don't be so hard on yourself, Mr. Straw Man, I'm sure there's some substance there in you somewhere (although we didn't see it in any coherent response to the points either I or Van City made). Van City wrote a response that echoed my sentiment on not being so quick to judge others because there's no simple answer to the educational system and problems different people in different parts of society have with it and you responded that "yes there is, it's called parents" or something to that effect. I then pointed out that while ideal, that doesn't always work in reality for a number of reasons and that if it doesn't is that really the child's fault? You came back with nothin' of substance, as far as I can tell, other than accusing me of putting words in your mouth. The words you wrote and that I responded to were your own, no more, no less. Anyone reading this thread can see them (unless, of course, you want to go back and do some editing). Thanks for trying, come again....

And I suppose it's the kid's fault if they're (a) actually not there or (b) there, but "not there" due to any number of factors like addiction or working two or three jobs to make end's meet? Or if they themselves don't know any better about life, school and the opportunities available for their kids because they never had such opportunities themselves? As someone who grew up a blue collar kid in a blue collar town myself, I've seen plenty of all of the above in my time. I had an econ professor at Columbia (Sunil Gulati, who's now head of US Soccer--a great teacher and a great guy) who said at the end of a year long course that featured many spirited debates between students from the right and the left, "You know, I hear everything you're all saying, but I've yet to find an economic justification for why the homeless woman on 110th Street's kids are out there in the cold begging with her every night just to survive. How does that makes sense, what purpose does it serve and how is that fair to them?" We all knew the woman he was talking about and we all saw her kids there with her every day. Walk a mile or two in those kids' shoes and tell me how easy it is to go from nothing to something in this country before spouting off with glib Rush Limbaugh-approved answers, most likely from the safety of a middle class upbringing and home....

Just curious--what inner city or other economically challenged public school did you graduate from? If the answer is none, then I kindly suggest you not pass judgment on those in that situation. I just love how upper middle class folks (making an educated assumption here based on prior posts) pass judgment on folks whose shoes they've never walked an inch in, much less a mile....

You mean other than returning that Joe Pisarcik fumble at the end of the game for a TD in the late '70s? That's still my number 1 Herm memory personally.....

I'm not sure I agree with that--there's also Boss from the NYG, Bo Scaife of the Titans and Matt Spaeth of the Steelers, any one of whom would instantly upgrade us at that spot (since we're starting from such a low point admittedly.) Personally, my dream offseason is re-signing Poz and Florence, letting Donte walk, and then signing any of Claybo, Yanda, Gaither, Bushrod or Jammal Brown at T and one of the aforementioned TE's. If we can do that, I honestly think we've got a shot at being competitive this year (i.e., at about .500) even with out tough schedule. Throw in another decent FA LB and I'd say we should be at .500 or better. Rose colored glasses? Perhaps.....