Is 2010 the last to require 4 exhibition game?

[Jeremiah W]

And, according to Forbes, his 600 million investment is now worth 1,079,000,000 dollars!

That's a great investment by any standard -- plus, he gets the honor of being owner to his hometown NFL team, the right reason to buy a sports franchise.

This billionaire whining about only making 44 million a year in Ravens profit is embarrassing.

Being greedy enough to take football away from his city -- along with all the jobs and money that go with it -- should be criminal.

Whatever the actuall yearly profits are it is hard to ignore the drastic rise in value. It is basically a mint and a monopoly on pro football with no reason it should ever not be profitable.

[Mista T]

And, according to Forbes, his 600 million investment is now worth 1,079,000,000 dollars!

That's a great investment by any standard -- plus, he gets the honor of being owner to his hometown NFL team, the right reason to buy a sports franchise.

This billionaire whining about only making 44 million a year in Ravens profit is embarrassing.

Being greedy enough to take football away from his city -- along with all the jobs and money that go with it -- should be criminal.

Let's see: that would equate to about 7% per year .. not a huge ROI. Somewhat conservative. But even if he did make more: so what? Unless we ever become are run by fucking Communists, every American citizen is free to make whatever he can off his investments. There's nothing "criminal" about a smart capitalist who invests half his fortune in his hometown's football team.

Steve Bisciotti stepped in when the Modells were teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. For those who don't remember, the Ravens could not even afford to pay up to the salary cap in the '96 and '97 seasons. Bisciotti, by buying out Modell and infusing $$$ into the organization, saved our butts from the ignominy of having a Mike Brown / Bill Bidwell type of cheapskate organization in the 21st Century. Putting it bluntly: Steve Bisciotti, by infusing a quarter billion cash down payment, had more to do with the Ravens winning the 2000 Super Bowl than any of the players.

Shame on any Ravens "fan" who begrudges our beloved owner daring to make a 7% return on the Ravens, while risking a major portion of his wealth. Would any of you be chipping in to recompensate him if Steve had lost $44 million per year? Didn't think so!

[DVGN]

Would any of you be chipping in to recompensate him if Steve had lost $44 million per year? Didn't think so!

No, none of us would -- but if that happened we would probably understand the necessity of an owners' lockout.

I don't mind Steve Bisciotti making 44 million a year on an investment that will double -- if not triple -- its value during the term that he holds it.

But I don't want to hear him complain about "cash flow" problems, and I don't think his making a meager 44 million a year is valid justification for taking football away from the public and the American economy.


EDIT:

Let's see: that would equate to about 7% per year .. not a huge ROI. Somewhat conservative.

And that would be a fair comparison if, when Bisciotti sells the team, he was to merely get his 600 million back.

[HoustonRaven]

Bravo, DVGN .... bravo indeed.

With charged words such as "greed" and "fair compensation", you've managed to continue the class warfare rhetoric started by the Union.

1. You assertion that the owners want an "18% pay cut for players" has been debunked as far back as March of this year, as the league's general council pointed out:

"These kinds of figures are misrepresentations of what our proposal is," Pash said at the time. "We have asked for 18% credit against the revenue base to reflect costs that we incur that we do not receive credit for today. From that revenue base, the players would then continue to get the same percentage that they get today under the salary cap. The change is nowhere close to 18%, probably half that."

I am no math major, but instead of the players getting 60% of the pie they already get, they will get 52%. Find me any other profession where the worker gets anything close to half their employers profits.

2. As for your assertion that the owners want players to pay their for their own flights, security, etc. Bullocks. Straight up. You are holding your allegiance to one article written back in June where a reporter is using one anonymous source. You really think the owners want the players to pay for this stuff? Really?

I have been present for Union negotiations and this is 110% spin by the union to make the owners look bad and to curry public support.

Nothing more than Unions once again, trying to bully their way to more stuff.

Now, feel free to once again making class judgments on the owners. You might want to also start using the words "just", "due" and "reasonable"

[The Fanatic]

So are ya'll ready to start the regular season next weekend now?

Cus afterall, with this change your final roster I'll assume would have to be set.

Everybody seen enough of the current secondary to start the season and be comfortable?

Seen enough of our LBs to make the final decision as to who should stick and who shouldn't?
Afterall, several of them have stood out in pass coverage abilitys giving them the nod.

Seen enough of Cousins, Moll, Mattison, etc. to decide who our starting line should consist of?

Have you seen enough of David Reed and Demetrius Williams to decide which stays and which goes, or whether or not to keep six receivers instead of five?

In theory, cutting the pre-season back to two games sounds great, and as a paying season ticket holder I'm sick of paying for pre-season games, but....

I got to believe the front office, coaches, etc. would rather have more time to evaluate this group of guys in order to make quality decisions regarding the final roster.
I'm going to assume just about every other team has these type of decisions going on as well in one aspect or another of their teams.

Certainly a case can be made for making these evaluations in other ways, but nothing can replace live game action against another team.

Hell, if these evaluations took place outside of live game action, Demetrius Williams would have been the second coming of Randy Moss last year cus he set the camp on fire impressing IIRC.

Now that would have been a true evaluation of his in game ability, wouldn't it?

There are probably many examples of this I'm sure that can only be sorted out for real and legitimitely in live game action.

Right now, as an uneducated fan only, I'm not too sure I'm comfortable with picking the final roster spots in some areas.

Just thought I'd bring this back up to see what people felt after seeing what we have seen so far after two pre-season games, which at this point doesn't appear like Superbowl contendors.

This additional two weeks might be beneficial with better evaluations of our LBS, what to do about CB (see travis Fisher), and possibly helping to answer some of these questions by allowing some injurys to heal. (see Gaither and Webb)

Careful what you wish for here folks...

[HoustonRaven]

And the winner of "The Most Opportunistic Post of the Year" goes to ....

The Fanatic!!!!!!

Yay, congrats! By pidgeon-holing our problems from last nights game, morphing them into this narrow argument, you managed to ignore that these problems do not automatically come at the second pre-season game. Issues such as these could happen in week 5, yet you squeezed them into facts that have nothing to do with it being only the second week of the pre-season.

And never mind the fact, a shorter pre-season will most likely bring an earlier starting date for OTA's and training camp, lets just live in the realm of make believe and pretend that no adjustments would be made to the training schedule. Kudos on your imagination.

So we should expect a post from you in ... say ... week 6 when something goes wrong as well? Maybe we can blame Lindsay Lohan not serving her full 27 days in jail for our CB woes? About as relevant.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek ... ;)

[The Fanatic]

Sorry Houston, but the facts are the facts here.
It has nothing to with me useing this as the perfect opportunity, which it was.

Shortening the pre-season and limiting the live game action of one team against the other could and very well might have serious ramifications in making roster decisions.

You can start OTAs and stuff like that as early as you want, add in extra scrimmages, etc, but it will not simulate game action.


So answer the questions Houston.

Which LBs would you pick right now?

Who should be the starting RT?

It isn't just this year, right now.
This shit goes on every year!!

I would lay down big bucks that to a man every coach in the NFL would still want these pre-season games for true evaluation purposes.
They'd all say they would adapt, but inside, they'd want more live game on game action to be thorough in theitr evaluations, and fair to the players trying to fulfill their dreams of being an NFL player.

We all know what is going to happen here, the all mighty dollar rules here.
I'm just saying there will be prices to pay for that decision that might be evident down the road within a season when one or more of your players don't turn out to be what you thought they would be.
Certainly expanded rosters will help offset some of these decisions if that's the route they choose, but how expabded are they going to be?

Oh yeah, sorry to be opportunistic here , but the timing is exactly what is going to be the eventual norm.

[HoustonRaven]

Shortening the pre-season and limiting the live game action of one team against the other could and very well might have serious ramifications in making roster decisions

Operative word here being "could". It also "could" work out just fine.

You can start OTAs and stuff like that as early as you want, add in extra scrimmages, etc, but it will not simulate game action.

Agreed. Point? I think Donovan McNabb would like to answer how much he likes actual game action this morning, and he would answer such right after he un-tapes his ankle.

So answer the questions Houston.

Which LBs would you pick right now?

JJ, Ray, Suggs and a yet to be determined 4th, IMO. But this would be a valid question if the pre-season was shortened AND they didn't adjust their preparation. But once again, that's fantasy land thinking that they wont make the proper adjustments.

Who should be the starting RT?

See above.

[The Fanatic]

"Operative word here being "could". It also "could" work out just fine."

Hence, part of the debate that is currently taking place,
This IMO is a huge unknown that concerns all the partys involved regarding decision making.
This can be said for just about any questionable decision made in life in general as well, but we're talking about a multi-billion dollar entity here that nobody wants to see get screwed up.
Kind of falls under the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" catagory.

"I think Donovan McNabb would like to answer how much he likes actual game action this morning, and he would answer such right after he un-tapes his ankle."

Injurys should have absolutely nothing to do with this decision.
We lost Jamal Lewis to a season ending knee injury at a camp practice.
Hell, we lost Foxworth this year in a freakin' walk through before real camp action even started.

The concerning injurys like a Mcnabb, etc. will fall under how coaching staffs handle their players.
We all know Mcnabb is going to be the starter.
No coach in his right mind is going to throw his starting QB out there in a situation where he's playing against guys that would essentially kill there mother to earn a spot on a roster.
If they do, then that's their fault for being stupid to begin with.

The rest you've verified my entire point with a non committed answer.
It's non committed because you haven't seen enough to make that decision, and neither have the coaches.

Every freakin' team in the league I'd venture to say has a pretty good idea of about 45 or so roster spots.
Some more, some less, but none of them have made all final decisions yet, and probably want to see a little more in game action.

You can make all the adjustments you want to try and account for the change, but none of them can accurately simulate live game action.

[Mista T]

I'll make a couple assumptions about the NFL's offseason and preseason activities in the post 2011 18-game season mode (from various PFT and other offseason rumor stuff):

(1) serious Spring activities will occur with focus on rookies and free agents. Perhaps a Spring League. From this activity, there would be some paring down.

(2) developmental league -- UFL perhaps -- to farm out developing players

(3) expanding the roster to approx 60, which will allow for more conservatism in making the final cuts.

Even if mistakes are made by the coaches on selecting initial rosters: it would be a small price to pay for the benefit of adding two regular season games and dumping two of the exhibition scams.