Glazers’ Kickball Team Not Robbing Bucs’ Coffers
February 23rd, 2010
Many, many people point to the Glazer family’s purchase of the English kickball team as the beginning of the end to the Bucs.
So often is this theory kicked about, that one of the first questions lobbed at NFL warden commissioner Roger Goodell at his State of the NFL address earlier this month was the connection between the two.
Goodell has long objected to any hint that the Bucs’ finances have been siphoned to prop up their kickball team across the sea. Yet that hasn’t stopped fans from pointing fingers.
One such fan fired off an e-mail to Peter King of Sports Illustrated who worked the phones with his contacts at the NFL front offices. He can find no such connection.
SPEAKING OF TEAM B … From Aaron Monroe, of Tampa: “In MMQB you mentioned about the Bucs shedding payroll rapidly. It’s apparent that the product we have here in Tampa isn’t as good, but no one seems to honestly talk about why. The Bucs have one of the lowest payrolls in the NFL and lots of 2010 draft picks, yet Mark Dominik has said they are not players in free agency. Passing on Vince Wilfork, Julius Peppers, Richard Seymour. No effort to sign Donte Stallworth or even Mike Vick last year, both coming with minimum cost exposure. Isn’t the real reason they’re staying on the sidelines because they have all their available cash tied up in a financial disaster with Man U and that’s destroying their NFL product? Robbing Peter to pay Paul so to speak. Is anyone in the league office monitoring the situation with the Glazers and Manchester United?”
Peter King: That’s a commonly held belief by a lot of people around the league, but I checked this morning, and I can tell you there’s no evidence to suggest the Glazers are taking, for example, any chunk of their $95 million annual network TV money and funneling it to pay down their debt with Manchester United. In their (slight) defense, it’s not the smartest thing to spend big money on an overall poor crop of unrestricted free-agents. I doubt the Bucs would be in contention for Julius Peppers, who, unless the money is very different, will have a lucrative chance to play for a good team like New England. Right now, Tampa’s a building team, not a good one.
How can Joe quibble with King? He has better sources than Joe.
But Joe will say this (yes, that’s a ripoff of a favorite, overused phrase of sports copy editors at the Poynter Paper): Why the hell would Dominik want Julius Peppers or Michael Vick?
Vick wasn’t even a remotely accurate quarterback before he was locked in a federal cage like one of his mongrels. Peppers, well, buyer beware.
Gil Brandt, speaking the last two days on Sirius NFL Radio, has been very much against any team coughing up cash for Peppers. Brandt did some research and noted rarely do defensive tackles who are 30 or older rack up double-digit sacks.
“They might when they are 29 but for some reason 30 seems to be the wall,” Brandt said. “I’d have to think a long, long, long, long time before I would sign Julius Peppers.”
Rather than mock Bryan and Joel, or Dominik, for not signing Peppers or Vick, Joe would like to buy them a beer!
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Buc fans just want the Bucs to sign someone. They are getting fantasy football confused with real football. Before the season last year, Ward was a nice pickup…until the season started. Why hasn’t that worked yet? I hope it still can. But don’t get mad if the Bucs don’t sign anyone, and don’t get happy if the Bucs do sign a player for the sake of signing him
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Yes, Peppers might be a waste.
But FAs like Antrell Rolle and Dunta Robinson might not.
Will we sign them? Of course not.
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Aaron Monroe, of Tampa has no idea what he’s talking about.
Vince Wilfork and Richard Syemour have both been slapped with the franchise tag from their respective teams.
Mike Vick was great for the highlight real but he was never a good QB even before he went to prison.
Julius Peppers would be OK if we could get him cheap but it doesn’t kill us to not Sign him.
And Dante Stallworth has never had a 1,000 yard season and only went over 800 once.
Wow they really dropped the ball on those guys.
Maybe if he spent less time reading Peter King and more time on JoeBucsFan.com he would be more informed.
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Joe believes he has found a marketing hook!
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:58 pm
@ Matt, Dunta Robinson is one of the top corners in the league. He will command a salary that will likely not be worth his services, probably Nate Clements type money. However, I’m in full support of going after Antrel Rolle. He can play safety and corner and should come at a relative discount to other top DB’s.
February 23rd, 2010 at 11:07 pm
A. There being no evidence to suggest that the Glazers are siphoning money from Tampa to the UK does not in any way mean that their kickball team is not affecting how they run their NFL team. It just means they don’t have brain dead accountants.
B. Peter King notes that many people around the league hold this belief. Why pray tell might that be? Could it be that since they’ve gotten ManU they’ve become the cheapest owners in the league? I thought so.
And to respond to the mistaken belief that going after Albert Haynesworth means that the Glazers weren’t cheap: By all reports Haynesworth was offered a fluff contract low on guaranteed money, roughly half of what the Skins offered although the “number” of the contact may have been higher. The reason was simple, it was to A. Fill up the cap space available as they had to hit the salary floor and B. Drive up interest (ticket sales) from casual fans who would read about the stud player the Bucs signed.
Instead of signing Haynesworth to fill the cap we got 1 year of MC80 at 7 million, Mike Nugent at 2.5 million and 1 yr of Angelo Crowell at 2 million. I can’t wait to see what the Glazers will do when they DONT have to spend money to reach a salary floor…
February 24th, 2010 at 8:47 am
So where did the idea come from that the Bucs were going to spend big on free agency? Oh yeah, from the Bucs themselves. As I recall that was the justification for the rise in ticket prices. How stupid are fans supposed to be? The Bucs are miles under the cap but at the top of ticket prices and profitability, the money is going somewhere….
February 24th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
It has been reported that there is “one” (1) corporation, Red Football, LLC, that all monies from the Bucs and ManU go into, and they pay all Sports pay-outs from. Red football, LLC is legit. But maybe Joe could substantiate if all monies go into, and out of this one corp. If this is correct, then the above story is BS.