The Winners
The Fans – I went over this yesterday, but I’d like to add a little footnote to it. I’ve often mulled what it would be like if the Bills actually left town. Aside from the rioting, I’ve always thought there would be a writer who would lay out poignant takes about how Buffalo could finally find its own identity and not be affiliated with just the football team. We could use tax money for things like parks or museums or more jobs. All that stuff that symbolizes the phoenix rising from the ashes to declare that we are more than just football fans but fans and leaders of Buffalo.
Well, that would have sucked!
The Bills are my Buffalo identity. Losing them would have totally put a damper on my hometown spirit for the region. Yes, I hope Buffalo continues to make strides in other areas and finds other things to identify with, but I think having the football team as the crown jewel is something to build from.
The Pegula power couple – Forget his and hers cars, more like his and hers sports teams. You take the Bills and I’ll take the Sabres. Amazing. What is left to say about the Pegulas? The jury is still out on how they will be as actual sports owners, especially since their start with the Sabres hasn’t exactly been heroic in terms of wins/losses. But in terms of being humanitarians, they win the Peace prize for Buffalo. They now control pretty much all of the Buffalo sports scene and you may as well throw in the Amerks for good measure. They also are like The Dons of the Penn State hockey program. They are rebuilding downtown Buffalo. They hold all the power now and are going to be immortalized by the politicians and fans alike. Thank goodness for them. I hate to think where we would be right now if they weren’t here.
The Bills – Say goodbye to “cash to the cap” and hello to “here’s our open checkbook, buy everyone!” Everything changes in terms of spending for the Bills. CJ Spiller, Marcell Dareus (if he cleans up) and Jerry Hughes are now in line for big pay days down the road. Under Ralph, the Bills have always been a riddle trapped in an enigma in terms of spending. They have been frugal but in a confusing way. I didn’t know what the hell they were doing in terms of giving out contracts most of the time (See: Byrd/Levitre/Peters and then Dockery/Walker/Jauron).
That changes now. The GM wants to re-sign this player? Done. The coach wants a new locker room? Done. They need to fly out of Buffalo in a Gulf Stream jet to recruit Tom Brady? Book it. Things are going to change big time come January in terms of budget. Hopefully they will have much better luck with spending than Darcy did when Pegula initially took over the Sabres.
Ralph Wilson- Yeah, I guess we should give Ralph a statue somewhere. Look, I still think Ralph was a pretty below average owner overall. He was meddlesome and at times made us think we were lucky to have a team when the product was pumping out 6-10 seasons. Twenty years into the future, if I walk by a statue of Ralph with the kid I don’t currently have and he asks me about the statue, I will tell him about the good times and the bad. However, the good times will outweigh the bad because of the fact that we’ll still be able to enjoy the Bills in twenty years.
If Ralph insisted to the trust that the team couldn’t be sold to someone with the intention of leaving, then you should probably get over any bitterness and acknowledge how he had a part in keeping the Bills here even after his death. He cared about his legacy and left us a little gift.
After he died, I wrote that as happy as I was that he kept the team in Buffalo during his life, we wouldn’t really know the final chapter to his legacy until we figured out where the franchise went next. We finally know and his legacy is safe. Of course, I’m still angry at how he fired Bill Polian… Okay, let it go, Joe. Let it go.
A new stadium – While the stadium talk is still pretty early in development, Pegula is the perfect owner here. No doubt he’ll spearhead the effort and put in his own money to help pay the tab. I mean, he only put in like 200 million or whatever into HARBORCENTER. If we were talking about someone like Tom Golisano, you could pretty much count on him asking the government to pick up everything including the dry cleaning for the Jills’ uniforms. Is it a coincidence that Pegula Sports and Entertainment is moving into HSBC Tower downtown when they could have just stayed at F’N Center? Hmmm. Steps away from F’N Center, HARBORCENTER, and maybe a new downtown stadium is more than circumstantial, wouldn’t you say?
The Losers
Bon Jovi – Well, say goodbye to all the numerous jabs and photoshop images of Bon Jovi sucking over the last 10 months. It’s funny, if MLSE didn’t have so many fricken leaks about their intentions to move the Bills, maybe fans would have been duped into believing Bon Jovi. I was on Twitter when news broke that he was looking to buy the Bills and initially everyone’s reaction was cool as a cucumber. Then the reports came out like 5 hours later about his moving intentions and that was it. He was fucked. He could have had Oprah Winfrey doing a tearful interview with him about how Buffalo reminded him of New Jersey’s blue-collar ethics and we still would have told him to take a hike into the Jersey swamp.
Bon Jovi should have linked himself with a different party whose intentions were to keep the team in Buffalo. Unfortunately, BJ couldn’t see himself as being a minority owner who would just get checks and maybe be in on a conference call. He wanted to be the majority owner, the face of an NFL franchise, and he mad a pact with the Canadian Devil. The devil got his due and it was a big old shot to the heart. RIP BON JOVI JOKES.
MLSE/Rodgers – What a fricken junkyard fire. They make the Dolans, who run the Rangers/Knicks, look like the Steelers’ Rooney family. Tons of discord between them and leaks that could sink Titanic or flood a Ralph Wilson stadium toilet. And to think Rodgers paid a ton for the Toronto series so they could show the NFL they were ready for a team, only to get a boatload of shit for it. Ralph Wilson has to be laughing his ass off in the afterlife for ripping those idiots off. Oh, and how are the Leafs doing? Seriously, just burn more money up there!
The relocation panic – You see that bonfire over by the WGR headquarters? It was started by the endless folders of show ideas dedicated to the Bills moving that a producer is now burning. It’s over. No more panic. No more mystery bidders or death knells or talk about how you feel about the Bills playing in Toronto for one game or having a stadium in Ontario. That shit is gone. We are going to have to find something new to panic about.
Donald Trump – A bid for 800 million? Um, did you not get the blue book value on NFL franchises, Mr. Trump? What a joke. The dude is a loser. He’s a media whore whose prime objective in life is to say “maybe” right before he says “no.”You really think the NFL was going to approve an owner who sits on Twitter all day, trolling the President? Please. They would have moved the team to Area 51 before they let that rightwing fascist take over the Bills. 800 million? Give me a break. Should have just done a season of Sports Celebrity Apprentice to get some media attention. Thank God we didn’t have to rely on him to save the day.
Everyone in between
Jim Kelly- Before Pegula came into our lives, a lot of Bills fans were holding out hope that Jim Kelly would come to the rescue like he did during some of his comeback games. Since the mid-2000’s, Kelly has always talked about wanting to be involved with buying the team and boasted about having discussions with Ralph about it.
Anytime Jim opened his mouth about the future, it made front page news even if it was just him rewording his initial intentions. He definitely sounded pretty confident. Unfortunately, a combination of health, Pegula’s rise in power, and Kelly’s demands that he and his brother own 2% of the team and have final say in personnel dethroned his efforts. Frankly, I never really bought into it to begin with.
I’m sure he’s disappointed, but at least he has his health and the peace of mind that the team will stay in Buffalo forever.
Tom Golisano – I was close to putting Tom in the loser pile since we have a bit of an Israel and Palestine past, but I’m in a good mood. The best way I can describe it is that Golisano was the “Break in case of an emergency” ownership option. Although 10 different outlets seemed to have him placing bids, or placing bids in his own time, or not doing anything, we can agree that sports have NEVER been Golisano’s passion. It’s always been making money and having political folks kiss his ass. If Pegula wasn’t around, maybe he would have gone toe-to-toe with MLSE. However, if you think he would have taken out 1.4 billion for the Bills and pitched in like, 300 million for a new stadium, well, I’m going to use my savings to buy a 1-way ticket to the moon then.
The current regime – I’m waiting until the end of the season to decide whether the Pegulas should do a clean sweep at One Bills Drive. Anyone who is trying to decipher the performance of The Dougs after just 17 games is trying to figure if they should marry someone after dating for 2 months. Pump the breaks. We still don’t know what we have with these guys. If the Bills finish 6-10 and there’s not much to build on, they should clean sweep. If they are at that 9-7 mark and certain young players seem to be coming into their own (see: EJ), I’d probably give it another year since you really need 3 years for a rebuilding plan to take shape.
I am curious as to what will happen with Russ Brandon. While everyone seems to point at how the Pegulas waited too long to fire Darcy/Lindy, Larry Quinn sure as hell left pretty fast after the purchase went down. I see Quinn as pretty much being the equal of what Russ Brandon is for the Bills.
Factor in the reports on how Kim Pegula is going to have a lot of stroke with the Bills and it leaves me wondering if there’s room for Russ. Brandon strikes me as a good solider who was at one point the defacto GM who ended up losing his power to Buddy Nix, but kind of regained it after Ralph passed the keys to the franchise to him. In other words, he can probably take getting a demotion or a promotion to another department. Hmm. New stadium project?