Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

[Dr. Lecter]

When the NFL's 32 team owners elected to opt out of the league's collective bargaining agreement earlier this week, which could cause a work stoppage in 2011, the move didn't come as a surprise. The owners, who nearly unanimously approved the present labor deal in March 2006, have become increasingly upset with the amount of revenue (60 percent) their foremost employees, the players, are currently raking in.

"We were fully prepared for this," players association head Gene Upshaw said. "We expected this; we started talking to the players last fall. All this means is that we will have football from now until 2010 not until 2012."

Though opting out was an expected move by the owners, one has to rewind to when the CBA was agreed on.

Back then, the Buffalo Bills' Ralph Wilson was one of two owners who vetoed the plan (joining the Cincinnati Bengals' Mike Brown), which proved to be a disastrous public relations decision at the time by the 89-year-old. With that said, it was also a prudent one. And Wilson, who's been rightly criticized for more than a few poor football-related decisions during his nearly 50-year tenure as the Bills' owner, deserves both praise and apologies for realizing that the CBA was not going to work.

http://www.realfootball365.com/index.php/articles/bills/11295

Like I said last week, there are many people in the media that should publically apoligize to Ralph, starting with Clayton and Mort.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

"I didn't understand it," said Buffalo's Ralph Wilson. "It is a very complicated issue and I didn't believe we should be rushing to vote in 45 minutes. I'm not a dropout ... or maybe I am. I didn't understand it."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2360258

Ralph didn't say it wasn't going to work. He said it was a complicated issue that he didn't understand. There's a world of difference.

[Jan Reimers]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

No, but Ralph was smart enough not to sign a complex agreement - one which gave an absurd 59.5% of gross revenues to the players and contained a very complicated revenue sharing formula between the small and large market teams - after only 45 minutes of review.

He and Brown turned out to be the only owners with a lick of common sense.

[Meathead]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

ralph is cheap

[Jan Reimers]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

Oh, and if the other owners UNDERSTOOD that they were giving 59.5% of the gross to the players, why the HELL did they sign it?

[Meathead]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

Ralph didn't say it wasn't going to work. He said it was a complicated issue that he didn't understand. There's a world of difference.

i dont think so

i think he was saying 'i dont understand how these ******s around me can rush to rubber stamp such a complicated issue when frankly i look at it and i see a bunch of ***t that dont make no damn sense at all'

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

i dont think so

i think he was saying 'i dont understand how these ******s around me can rush to rubber stamp such a complicated issue when frankly i look at it and i see a bunch of ***t that dont make no damn sense at all'

that's your interpretation and it's a pretty loose one. Read the quote- that's not what he said.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

Oh, and if the other owners UNDERSTOOD that they were giving 59.5% of the gross to the players, why the HELL did they sign it?

because Gene Upshaw's a thug and they wanted to avoid a work stoppage.

[Bill Brasky]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

ralph is cheap

[Jan Reimers]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

The Joneses,' Kraft's and Snyder's were help up by Gene Upshaw? Then they're cowards, and Ralph is a hero.

Op, you can crap all over Ralph on this, but he certainly comes off better than 30 of the other owners, no matter how negatively you try to spin Ralph's stance.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

The Joneses,' Kraft's and Snyder's were help up by Gene Upshaw? Then they're cowards, and Ralph is a hero.

Op, you can crap all over Ralph on this, but he certainly comes off better than 30 of the other owners, no matter how negatively you try to spin Ralph's stance.

only if you give him credit for something HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SAY. This is exactly what I mean when I talk about the blind homerism around here. Ralph never came out with a bunch of reasons why the CBA was bad. He just said he didn't understand it. Now we're supposed to give the old man credit for not understanding something that turned out to be bad? Give me a break.

I'm not crapping all over him- for whatever reason, he made the right choice. But a lot of people are trying to give him credit he doesn't deserve.

[Meathead]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

that's your interpretation and it's a pretty loose one. Read the quote- that's not what he said.

do you mean this one or are there more?

"I didn't understand it," said Buffalo's Ralph Wilson. "It is a very complicated issue and I didn't believe we should be rushing to vote in 45 minutes. I'm not a dropout ... or maybe I am. I didn't understand it."

it depends on what the definition of 'it' is

i still hear him saying "I didn't understand it," with 'it' being the other owners being in such a rush to sign it

when placed in the context of the rest of what he was saying that whole time, i cant see how it could be interpreted any other way. he was continually complaining how the other owners werent looking at the details and were in too much of a hurry to just get it over with

[yordad]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

The Joneses,' Kraft's and Snyder's were help up by Gene Upshaw? Then they're cowards, and Ralph is a hero.

Op, you can crap all over Ralph on this, but he certainly comes off better than 30 of the other owners, no matter how negatively you try to spin Ralph's stance.

because Gene Upshaw's a thug and they wanted to avoid a work stoppage.

I could be wrong, but to me Op's comments sounded like a Wilson compliment. I mean, if 30 wealthier, younger, more powerful owners all bowed down, and Wilson didn't, that makes him sound like a knight to me.

do you mean this one or are there more?

"I didn't understand it," said Buffalo's Ralph Wilson. "It is a very complicated issue and I didn't believe we should be rushing to vote in 45 minutes. I'm not a dropout ... or maybe I am. I didn't understand it."

it depends on what the definition of 'it' is

i still hear him saying "I didn't understand it," with 'it' being the other owners being in such a rush to sign it

when placed in the context of the rest of what he was saying that whole time, i cant see how it could be interpreted any other way. he was continually complaining how the other owners werent looking at the details and were in too much of a hurry to just get it over with

Excellent point. It could be interpreted either way.

[chernobylwraiths]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

ralph is cheap

and greedy

[YardRat]

Re: Bills’ Wilson was right regarding CBA; where are the apologies?

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-04-10-congress-cba_x.htm

The issue concerning Wilson is that under the new CBA, new owners of NFL franchises would be excluded from revenue sharing, for a yet-to-be-decided length of time. That would very likely force the Bills' new owner to move to a more profitable city.

Wilson said the new CBA is too expensive to afford and doesn't address the growing disparity in wealth between large- and small-market teams.

A successful businessman, Wilson doesn't like the math of the NFL's new collective bargaining agreement with its players. He figures small-market teams eventually might have to pay 70% of their revenues in salary, compared with 40% for the wealthiest clubs.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2006-03-28-nfl-tech_x.htm

"This new deal is worse than the one we had," said Wilson, not attending the owners meetings in Orlando this week. "You want labor peace, but you also want a fair deal."

Wilson believes club costs were not reflected enough in the CBA and that some peers were forced into a resolution because of significant debt. Although the previous CBA would not have expired until 2008, ramifications including an uncapped 2007 campaign would have been triggered if a new CBA wasn't done before the 2006 fiscal year began.

"The owners panicked," Wilson said. "They were afraid there might be a work stoppage. But we would've had 12 months to sit down and work a better deal out. With this deal, there's going to be half the clubs under water."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/bills/2006-04-16-bills-future_x.htm

"Yes, we could lose money, despite the sharing of TV money and all the audio stuff," Wilson said. "Don't believe everything the PR machine at the league office puts out."

Wilson believes his concerns about the league's future will be borne out.
"I think a lot of other clubs are in the same fix," he said last week. "They don't know it yet but they will when they examine their books at the end of the year."

As part of the deal, there is a new revenue-sharing model, whose provisions have not been determined.

It's this model that concerns Wilson, saying there are potential inequities that could seriously affect teams such as his.

Among his concerns is a proposal that would restrict a prospective buyer from fully taking part in revenue sharing.

Wilson is particularly disturbed by the economic model set out in the new pact because it heightens the inequity between large- and small-market teams.

He singled out three owners, including Daniel Snyder of the Washington Redskins, as being part of a group that doesn't have the best interests of the league at heart.

Asked later what he thinks Snyder's reaction will be to his comments, Wilson bluntly replied: "I don't give a damn about Dan Snyder."

You can take a five-second sound-bite and determine that it represents the entire truth if you want to, OP, but the fact is Ralph knew exactly what the hell he was talking about and why the CBA was bad for the league. There's a lot more out there than just "I didn't understand it."