Why I am not optimistic about this team

[CodeMonkey]

No. We buy tickets because we like being part of the exclusive 32-member club called the NFL. Places like Buffalo only get to keep their teams because we show up. Stop showing up and when the Bills leave town people will say we are bad fans and had it coming.

 

It's because of fans like me you still have a Bills team to B word about.

 

PTR

I'm not convinced that is the case any more. I'm sure throughout most of it's history that NFL teams relied on revenue from tickets, concessions etc to stay in business. But now I have to believe that money is nothing compared to TV revenue. I'd like to see the numbers on how much Mr. Wilson puts in his pocket after a sold out home game versus his share of the TV revenue for that same game.

[JohnC]

Just don't come here crying about it when they are gone.

 

PTR

 

If the team is moved it will be due to the highest bidder for the team in auctiion wants it moved. It has nothhing to do with the support of the fan base. Your claim that the mediocre Bills haven't been supported is not only not true but makes no sense.

[chris heff]

I am sick of the Bills moving discussion. I have been hearing it since 1968. The only team that could move to LA is the Rams and even that is unlikely. LA and CA are a financial train wreck, which means no public money. A year ago there were two alleged stadium deals, one is all but dead and the other you never hear anything about.

 

No professional sports team is ever moving to Las Vegas, not after the NBA Allstar game debacle.

 

Next biggest market is San Antonio and no way Jerry Jones lets that happen.

[BADOLBILZ]

I understand you and NYC Bill's disappointment in the team letting Levitre walk. However, you are taking that single company judgment and extrapolating it beyond it's actual level of impact. You and Bill are making the Levitre transaction a test of faith of the organization when it is simply a cost/benefit judgment. You may disagree with the judgment but there is a rational basis for it. There are many other organizations that are reluctant to over spend for the guard position.You might disagree with that view but it is not a unique (if not prevailing) view within the league.

 

Is this backwater organization in the process of changing into a more forward functionion organization? I believe so. Although at this very early point it is based more on speculation than on action. You are essentially suggesting (my opinion) that because the organization made the Levitre decision that was no doubt based on money that it signals the same old way of doing business. If I am correct in how you are interpreting this particular player transaction then I think you are reading too much to that single transaction.

 

The owner is no longer involved in the operation. There is a younger and more modern GM. There is a new HC with a more sophisticated staff. This draft had a different feel to it. (Simply my impression.) And most importantly this frustrating organization finally has used a first round pick on a legitimate franchise prospect. That is a sign of progress for this lagging franchise.

 

My underlying point is that overall this new team has made a number of medium range personnel moves that make a lot of sense. In general this new staff has competently acted. Don't over analyze a particular deal but look at the totality of the transactions. I'm not naively optimistic about the short term but in the longer term I feel this franchise is moving in the right direction.

 

John every time the Bills have allowed a player to leave in free agency or traded them to avoid paying them has been a "single company judgement". Yeah, every organization makes them......that is an obvious and moot point......The Bills however AREN'T every organization. They are the organization that hasn't had a playoff team since the 1990's. That is an exclusive club of ONE. They aren't the Steelers. They don't have the system in place, they are trying to reverse the relentless momentum of losing. You don't make that any easier by losing talent and leaving money on the table. Thus my point about drastic times.

[PromoTheRobot]

 

I'm not convinced that is the case any more. I'm sure throughout most of it's history that NFL teams relied on revenue from tickets, concessions etc to stay in business. But now I have to believe that money is nothing compared to TV revenue. I'd like to see the numbers on how much Mr. Wilson puts in his pocket after a sold out home game versus his share of the TV revenue for that same game.

And there are dozens of TV markets larger than Buffalo without NFL teams. I guess we'll never know until it's too late.

 

PTR

[K-9]

I'm not convinced that is the case any more. I'm sure throughout most of it's history that NFL teams relied on revenue from tickets, concessions etc to stay in business. But now I have to believe that money is nothing compared to TV revenue. I'd like to see the numbers on how much Mr. Wilson puts in his pocket after a sold out home game versus his share of the TV revenue for that same game.

 

Starting in 2014, the NFL will get $7b per season from the networks, which is approximately $218m per team, per season. Divide that by 16 and teams get approximately $13.6m per game.

 

You can figure out the rest. I'm too lazy to multiply the number of seats x the average price of a ticket and I don't know how much they get for their luxury suites, either.

 

Good luck.

 

GO BILLS!!!

Edited July 21, 2013 by K-9

[BADOLBILZ]

You keep referring to Tannehill as a QB who made the transition from college to the NFL quite easily, and yet ignore the fact that his college head coach is now his offensive coordinator at Miami. Something which greatly helped in his transition. That is also something that has never happened in the history of the league afaik. Besides, like I pointed out Tannehill didn't have that great a rookie year, not with a 7-9 season, and 12 TD's 13 INT's. Miami also has a pretty decent defense and O line with 2, #1 picks at tackle.

 

Cam Newton, RG3, Russell Wilson,and Colin Kaepernick are all super gifted player athletes / QB's that are playing in the new vogue read option offense, and its because of their duel threat ability to run on any given play that is also making them so successful. Two of those QB's are playing on very, very good teams with some of the best O lines currently in the NFL in SF, Seattle, and Washington is ranked #7 in run blocking.

 

Now, lets look at the QB's trying to play mostly from the pocket on somewhat decent teams, Ryan Tannehill, Matthew Stafford, Josh Freeman, Christan Ponder, and now the bad teams, Jake Locker, Blane Gabbert, Brandon Weeden, Mark Sanchez and Sam Bradford.

 

Which tells me that success in the NFL is determined by the quality of the team each QB plays for, and not simply because the NFL is now easier then college. Which really is an utterly absurd statement.

 

This is just simply not true, if that were really true then why did Tim Tebow fall on his face, or Vince Young, or JaMarcus Russell? Some of the greatest college QB's ever! Also, tell this to Jake Locker, Blane Gabbert, Brandon Weeden, Mark Sanchez, Sam Bradford. The QB's playing on bad teams with bad coaching, schemes and players.

 

Matthew Stafford suffered his first two years in the league, playing only 10 games his first, and 3 his second year. Michael Vick is always getting injured, and beaten up. QB's on bad team have just as much chance as getting beaten up now as they did 8 years ago.

 

Have the NFL rules changed over the last 20 years to allow more passing and to protect the QB more, in a word yes! Have they changed that much since 2005 when JP Losman started at QB or 2007 when Trent Edwards started playing, not really, not that I've seen. Players on bad teams still get their a$$ handed to them every year, game after game.

 

Its not assertion, previous to the Senior Bowl EJ wasn't even ranked as a top 5 QB by ANYONE. EJ moved up because of his play in the senior bowl and by getting senior bowl MVP honors in a very, very weak QB draft class.

 

Cmon man, here are his stats for that game... 7 of 10 for 76 yards, 1 TD passing, 1 TD rushing, 1 INT http://www.nfl.com/d...-2013-nfl-draft

 

 

Wow, that last bolded statement is another utterly absurd statement.

 

QB Andrew Luck was the #1 overall pick as he was ranked as the next John Elway / Peyton Manning because of his ability as a pure pocket passer, and not primarily because of his physical ability. Actually one of his weaknesses was not having a cannon for an arm.

 

"Player Comparison: Peyton Manning. The main reason why pundits, analysts and evaluators liken Luck to Manning is the intelligence. Both quarterbacks are play-callers who have a fabulous understanding of defenses. Luck is the most advanced quarterback mentally to enter the NFL since Manning, and the Stanford product may be ahead of where Manning was coming out of Tennessee.

 

Luck does not have Manning's arm strength, but he makes up for that with excellent mobility. Manning has never been one to scramble well or run, but Luck is phenomenal at moving out of the pocket, throwing on the run or picking up yards with his feet."

 

It isn't fair to expect Luck to be as good a quarterback or have as prolific career as Manning. However, he's a future franchise quarterback who has the capacity to be one of the elite players in the NFL."

http://walterfootbal...rt2012aluck.php

 

You are out of touch. The recent rule enforcement has drastically altered the landscape. You remember that hit that Trent Edwards apologists claim destroyed Edwards' career? That almost certainly doesn't happen in the past 3 years, because that hit would have been a huge fine or even suspension. If they hadn't changed the rules Aaron Rodgers was on his way to being concussed out of the league.

 

It has made a huge difference and if you don't realize that then you simply aren't watching the NFL and/or you can't read a stat line. The rules changes actually hurt the Bills, because Fitzpatrick looks a whole lot better relative to the competition in a league where athletic QB's are stifled by their lack of smarts and experience. Remember in 2010 when Terrell Suggs was telling people that Fitz should go to the Pro Bowl? That's because relative to the rest of the QB's in the league and taking into consideration his lousy team, Fitz' was playing at a high enough level to earn consideration. It was about 2/3 of the way thru that season when Goodell started laying out the huge fines and defenses started to back off. That trend accelerated in 2011 as defenses had to learn how to tackle cleanly again. The rising tide continued to raise Fitz' numbers in 2011 but relative to the rest of the league he wasn't as good as he had been prior to the emphasis.

 

As for Luck.....turns out his arm strength was vastly underrated. Guy has a big time arm. You would know this if you actually watched the game.

[Best Player Available]

And there are dozens of TV markets larger than Buffalo without NFL teams. I guess we'll never know until it's too late.

 

PTR

Backhanded slap once again to Bills fans aside. If you're referring the inability to sellout every game in B-Lo, also contributing to the smaller market syndrome. Maybe you should go on a tirade against the city fathers for letting a once vibrant city decay to almost Detroit conditions. With no end in sight.

 

As for stadiums, I believe a lot of people are onboard for the new stadium proposal in Oakland. It would be the smallest in the NFL.

Capacity? 50,000 I believe. Talk about chitty fans they won't even sell that out.

[chris heff]

 

And there are dozens of TV markets larger than Buffalo without NFL teams. I guess we'll never know until it's too late.

 

PTR

Name them.

[BADOLBILZ]

Ralph wants to win. His problem is he had no idea how. He groped around looking for the answer to no avail. Plus he would stick his nose into everything or let his daughter act as a scout etc. And the older he became the less he trusted people he didn't have some connection to. Now it is true he did not wan to lose money, but what NFL team owner does? The Bills rarely were the cheapest run organization. Just the most mediocre over time.

 

So if I understand you correctly, you say if the Bills can't field a winner, then just let them leave town? Curious, especially since you have been here for years, along with the rest of us, following the team. The Bills don't have to leave Buffalo. You can just leave the Bills as a fan. So what's stopping you?

 

There is no "problem" as you put it. If you like having an NFL team you buy tickets and go to games. If every fan threw a tantrum and held their breath every time their team didn't win it all there would be no sports. Living in New England I listen to spoiled fans piss and moan about the Sox, Celtics and Bruins "not being committed to winning." I want to punch people like that.

 

I stand by my statement. Cities like New York can afford to be blase about their teams because no one is moving the Jets or Mets to Las Vegas or Raleigh. Buffalo is in no such position. So if you'd rather there not be a Buffalo Bills or Buffalo Sabres then by all means stay home. Just don't come here crying about it when they are gone.

 

PTR

 

It's not as simple as Ralph didn't know how to win. If the team was winning, he was willing to make his players the highest paid in the league. But he also sabotaged his better regimes by chasing away Chuck Knox, Bill Polian and John Butler and he did plenty of other things that simply made good management hard to get. This is why they call the guy "mercurial".

 

If you are really COMMITTED to something you don't let it fall apart so easily. Ralph wants to win, but he is not committed to it. Desiring to do something and being committed to following thru with it are two very different things. Committment usually involves sacrifice and Ralph was always only going to do what felt best to Ralph. He was not going to sacrifice anything, be it pride, power or control. In the end, paying the big contracts was actually a simpler decision. As a business owner, I know this is the case. Evaluating the worth of management and then having the faith to let go and enable them to do their job is much more difficult than evaluating the worth to the company of the guys actually making the widgets.

 

And if he knows he can't win, Ralph then gets tight with the purse strings. This has undeniably made it harder to reverse the problem and to find and retain talent to right the ship. I think Ralph is very competitive and I think that in lieu of winning Ralph has derived satisfaction from out-earning the majority of his fellow owners. If he can't win on the field he wants to win on the ledger. Ralph's failing as an owner really boils down to not being able to prevent his pridefulness from leading to losses on the field.

[chris heff]

 

And there are dozens of TV markets larger than Buffalo without NFL teams. I guess we'll never know until it's too late.

 

PTR

http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets

 

I am not trying to be a jerk, but you said dozens. After LA where? Portland? Salt Lake City? Albuquerque? Louisville? Where?

 

Add Rochester and Syracuse. The market is top 20?

Edited July 21, 2013 by chris heff

[BADOLBILZ]

http://www.stationin...m/tv/tv-markets

 

I am not trying to be a jerk, but you said dozens. After LA where? Portland? Salt Lake City? Albuquerque? Louisville? Where?

 

There aren't. Having Ontario as part of the equation makes the Bills TV market one of the largest in the NFL. Promo is just determined to try to convince fans that if they would just unconditionally support the product all of the teams problems would go away. Just like the Toronto Maple Loafs and Chicago Cubs.

[PromoTheRobot]

I'm not doing anything but responding to posts. You folks are adding your own ulterior motives.

 

PTR

Edited July 22, 2013 by PromoTheRobot

[chris heff]

I'm not doing anything but responding to posts. You folds are adding your own ulterior motives.

 

PTR

Your responses are so robotic. I represent being called a fold!

[Coach Tuesday]

So in sum, are we comfortable that our Wood no longer has Levitre to help it? It's all on Manuel now...

[JohnC]

John every time the Bills have allowed a player to leave in free agency or traded them to avoid paying them has been a "single company judgement". Yeah, every organization makes them......that is an obvious and moot point......The Bills however AREN'T every organization. They are the organization that hasn't had a playoff team since the 1990's. That is an exclusive club of ONE. They aren't the Steelers. They don't have the system in place, they are trying to reverse the relentless momentum of losing. You don't make that any easier by losing talent and leaving money on the table. Thus my point about drastic times.

 

I don't want to quibble or have a discussion that goes in circles. What is needed more than anything else from this historically malfunctioning franchise is not having the mind-set that it has to act out of desperation. That is a bad approach to take. The mind-set should focus simply on doing the right thing and functioning at a high competency level as a general practice. Acting out of desperation with a short term perspective is not the right approach to take. It's about time that this erratic franchise act in a more stable and purposeful manner.

 

If this franchise functions at a reasonably smart level over a two or three year time frame then it will get back into being relevant. You stated that the Bills are not the Steelers. You are certainly right about that. The reason that the Bills aren't like the Steelers is because the Bills under the auspices of a buffoon owner has created an environment of constant change. It seems that every three years or so there is a change of administrations. The characteristic that most epitomizes the Steelers and the Ravens is stability in the coaching staff and front office.

 

Excuse me for seeming to be judgmental but you and NYC Bill have allowed the Levitre transaction to cloud your perspective on everything. Let it go and look at the bigger picture. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying you are wrong on the Levitre issue---you make a good case for his retention. But in the NFL player movement is a common occurrence. Because of the cap all teams are required to make many judgments on players. Some work out and some don't.

 

I'm confident that if Manuel shows promise as a qb in his rookie year that your attention to the Levitre departure will mostly fade. I don't want to sound like a hypocrite but if the Bills don't come up with a deal on Byrd then I will be joining your camp with a lot more aggression and hostility.

[PromoTheRobot]

Your responses are so robotic. I represent being called a fold!

 

Combination of fat fingers on a tiny virtual smartphone keyboard.

 

PTR

Edited July 22, 2013 by PromoTheRobot

[thewildrabbit]

Because the physical ability of your QB is more important now that the position is no longer rocket science.

 

Really? So what happened with Vince Young, JaMarcus Russell, Tim Tebow?

[8-8 Forever?]

If the team is moved it will be due to the highest bidder for the team in auctiion wants it moved. It has nothhing to do with the support of the fan base. Your claim that the mediocre Bills haven't been supported is not only not true but makes no sense.

Correct. Once Ralph passes on, all bets are off, it's all business at that point. If a buyer pays $800m for something, I believe he or she can do whatever they want with it. I personally believe the Bills are moving to L.A. to Farmers Field paid for by someone else. All they need now is a team and the stadium will be built by 2016. All other options either require a stadium to be built (expensive and slow) or are outside the U.S. (total wild card for an owner trying to attract players and coaches). The NFL very much wants a team in L.A. Then the Chiefs can finally move out of that division and into the North, with Ravens joining the AFC East. We need to hope Ralph lives to be 100.

Edited July 22, 2013 by 8and8Forever

[Sisyphean Bills]

John every time the Bills have allowed a player to leave in free agency or traded them to avoid paying them has been a "single company judgement". Yeah, every organization makes them......that is an obvious and moot point......The Bills however AREN'T every organization. They are the organization that hasn't had a playoff team since the 1990's. That is an exclusive club of ONE. They aren't the Steelers. They don't have the system in place, they are trying to reverse the relentless momentum of losing. You don't make that any easier by losing talent and leaving money on the table. Thus my point about drastic times.

 

My issue with the Levitre situation is that, as Andy said, the Bills decided to not even put their hat in the ring. They (correctly) determined he was one of the more prized players going into the market, and didn't even make an effort. Now part of that might be that they valued Byrd more and decided the cash outlay for two upper tier players wouldn't look good for their bottom line. But, if you objectively consider that statement, it is an anti-motivation for the Bills to execute the "Buddy Plan" and draft well and keep their own. Their cash flow equations can never be optimized for the business if they have to try to sign players that are truly among the very best at their positions to second contracts; that is, pay the going freight league-wide. Instead, it smacks of business as usual. Team building amounts to hoping young guys come in guns blazing and outplay their rookie contracts (optimizing value to cost) and back fill the holes with budget contracts to journeyman that you hope can get coached up enough to not completely suck and maybe sprinkle in a marquee name once in a while to spark some fan interest.