Vacation Man Doesn’t Think Glazers Are “Cheap”
February 16th, 2010
Pat “Vacation Man” Yasinskas intensely defended Team Glazer while posting replies in a Monday mailbag post on BSPN.com.
One of his NFC South blog readers had the nerve to call out Vacation Man for a previous comment he made that backed the Glazers’ spending decisions and praised them for getting a new stadium built in Tampa.
Tom in Clearwater writes: Come on man, you know the Glazers did not ‘get us the stadium’. The Glazers never expected the voters of Hillsborough County to vote for a 1-cent tax to pay for the stadium. They were ready to bolt town with the Bucs. The only way the vote went through was it was tied to education and police. To say the Glazer (sons) are not being cheap is asinine. They are so darn strapped due to Manchester United – you know it; the NFL knows it. I enjoy your column…. but c’mon man!!
Vacation Man fired back in a lengthy retort:
Pat Yasinskas:I know it’s popular among Tampa Bay fans to say the Bucs are being cheap, but I think those fans are taking the easy route and just speaking off the top of their heads. That’s dangerous territory, unless you really know what you’re talking about. Have you seen the Buccaneers’ financial books? I don’t think you accurately can call them cheap unless you have some real evidence. We all know about the reported debt with Manchester United and we know the Bucs didn’t sign a lot of the big-name free agents many of you wanted last year. But that was part of a rebuilding plan because the Bucs had decided they weren’t going anywhere with Jon Gruden’s annual patchwork. By the way, they paid Gruden and former general manager Bruce Allen a fortune not to work last year. They also gave huge contracts to Josh Freeman, Kellen Winslow, Derrick Ward, Michael Clayton and gave Antonio Bryant $10 million as the franchise player. As far as the stadium, the Glazers did what they had to do and that kept the team in Tampa and gave the city one of the best stadiums in the NFL. They also won a Super Bowl. I’m not saying the Glazers are perfect owners and some of the points fans make about them may be valid, but I think fans need to support their thoughts instead of simply saying the Glazers are cheap. You want the real definition of cheap, think back to the Culverhouse days.We all know about the reported debt with Manchester United and we know the Bucs didn’t sign a lot of the big-name free agents many of you wanted last year. But that was part of a rebuilding plan because the Bucs had decided they weren’t going anywhere with Jon Gruden’s annual patchwork. By the way, they paid Gruden and former general manager Bruce Allen a fortune not to work last year. They also gave huge contracts to Josh Freeman, Kellen Winslow, Derrick Ward, Michael Clayton and gave Antonio Bryant $10 million as the franchise player. As far as the stadium, the Glazers did what they had to do and that kept the team in Tampa and gave the city one of the best stadiums in the NFL. They also won a Super Bowl. I’m not saying the Glazers are perfect owners and some of the points fans make about them may be valid, but I think fans need to support their thoughts instead of simply saying the Glazers are cheap. You want the real definition of cheap, think back to the Culverhouse days…..
Look, Joe believes the “evidence” Vacation Man is looking for is out there. This isn’t an X-file.
Joe’s not sure why Vacation Man can’t wrap his head around the facts. The Bucs, per NFL.com, spent less money on players than any team from 2004-2008.
Now that might not mean the Glazers are “cheap,” to use Vacation Man’s word. But more than likely it does mean that. If you spend the least, usually you can be defined as being the most frugal. No?
Joe’s willing to give Team Glazer a bit of a pass when it comes to the numbers, considering they were clearly ready to break the bank for Brett Favre, whose signing would have taken the Bucs out of the bottom ranking among league spenders from ’04 to ’08.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Wow Vacation man was so dedicated that he posted that message twice! Deja Vu!
I KNOW it’s popular to just say the Glazers are like little birdies (cheap..cheap…cheap).
But when you look at the contracts last year and remember that the Bucs were in the bidding for Albert Haynesworth as well with his inflated contract I wouldn’t say CHEAP.
Cheap was the Culverhouse organization. Look at what One Buc Place is now compared to when the Culverhouse’s had that little sweat shop.
The Glazers are business people not fans. Fans want and want irregardless of the price while a business person looks at their bottom line.
A perfect example is how much the Glazers paid Jon Gruden to be a MNF announcer. Personally I would have recalled Gruden after the 0-7 start and made him come down to One Buc Place to at least clean the toilets.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:16 am
i stopped reading his articles a while ago he always sticks up for the glazers as if they are paying him to do so the fact is the glazers are over a billion dollars in debt have been the cheapest spending team in the nfl for 5 years been 30 million under the cap for 5 years now we have the cheapest hc and gm in the nfl and our headcoach is also our d cord coach so we are paying the cheapest hc to do 2 jobs for the price of one how much cheaper can we get really
February 16th, 2010 at 11:17 am
The main reason the Bucs or the Glazers however you want to look at it have spent the least amount of money is because they have had the least amount of draft success in the last decade or more of ALL the teams in the NFL. The Bucs have drafted one Pro Bowler since 1997. When you don’t draft well you don’t have players to give big extensions to to keep, you end up drafting more young guys who make very little in their 1st contract or you go out and sign street free agents who are also cheap for the most part and then you have a roster that looks like the Bucs had the last 3 seasons. You can’t just spend the money to spend it, that sounds more stupid than the fans who bitch and moan about 30 million in cap room when they have no idea how the Bucs arrived at that point. If and When the Bucs do reestablish a foundation of young players who deserve to be extended and kept together for a while the money will be paid to those that deserve it and the Bucs will once again be right in the top half of money spent.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:37 am
lol this article is so good you posted twice.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:47 am
If we trade up to #1 and take Suh, we can squash that theory.
If we trade back we can add fuel to the fire.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:50 am
i want suh badly as long as we dont have to give up a 2nd round pick i think we should do whatever it takes to get him
February 16th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Look, the Glazers are not CHEAP! For years we had one of the highest paid coaching staff’s in the league. The problem is that they are not cheap. The problem is that they are Broke. Their is a difference in the two. If they did not have incredible loan payments going to their soccer team, more money would be going back into the bucs.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
LOLOLOLOLOL LOL…..*sniffle*…
wow………That’s sad……………………………they PAID that guy to write that?
That may be the weakest defense I’ve ever heard.
Lots of assumptions there, VM………….
February 16th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
You know…….if we really did have the highest paid
coaching staff for years then I would cut the ownership some slack for that.
I never knew that (assuming it’s true),
…..but if it is…..that would be the first real proof I’ve seen that they’re not cheap.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Broke or cheap, the end result is the same.
I love how people us Albert Haynesworth as a reason the Glazerhouse’s aren’t cheap. You know why they couldn’t sign him? Because the terms of the contract were very unfavorable to the player. The Bucs might have offered him 100M, but he would have never seen all that money. It was a joke.
If the owners aren’t cheap (or broke, whatever), will someone please answer why the Bucs aren’t going to re-sign AB? I love the excuse that he’s a complainer. How convenient.
February 16th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Hell the Nfl.com story confirms that they were cheap. Period. End of story. I may shove the damn story in his face in his next chat.
February 16th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
What needs to be made clear to VM, is that a very large reason for why ‘Team Glazer’ allowed the FO to sign the players to the (horrible, in many cases) contracts they did was because there is this funny thing called a Salary Floor that they had to deal with. You see, up until this year, every team must allocate a certain percentage of the salary cap to players salaries. Eureka VM! That’s where you get Clayton getting a 24 mil dollar contract, so that he could get 7 million guaranteed toward the 2009 CAP!
Let us also not forget Rich Bisaccia’s time as a ST/RB coach in 2008 or the massive amounts of layoffs the Bucs FO has seen in the past year regarding staffing.
But yeah, the Glazers aren’t cheap…broke, not cheap.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Yeah, the Glazer’s are broke. In part because of Machester U. Also in part due to the mentality of our fans, “im not going to spend money on the Glazers until they spend money on the players”.
Great, your doing our city a great favor by boycotting the team. If you haven’t noticed by now, that is going to do anything but make the situation worse. You want the Glazers to be better owners? Maybe you should go to the games and support your team. If you cant afford to go to the game, thats fine, watch them on TV.
What really cracks me up is those of you who cancel your season tickets because we had one bad year, yet you call yourself a “Bucs fan”.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
make the situation better**