Well, in theory, all the existing ticket holders should have the same rights to buy new seats that every season ticket holder who had a new stadium built in their current city had. In Chicago all existing season ticket holders were offered the “privilege” of buying PSLs and then were given seats roughly analogous to to their old seats (or to pick new ones if they were available) when they did the new stadium and I would think that Bills fans should have the same rights if the team moves to Toronto.
Sorry, I know this is an old point by now…but when has this been proven?
Because we didn’t cave to Al Davis’s rampant assholery or because the Ram’s decided to leave a suburb of Los Angeles and get an awesome stadium in St. Louis?
The Lakers are treated like gods in LA. You can’t drive anywhere within 10 miles of Dodger Stadium when there is a home game. Most people I know are STILL Raiders fans (I know I am, and yes, it’s a sad life) even after they treated us like dirt. Hell, even the Ducks have a good fanbase, and LA really isn’t a hockey town.
Yeah, the Coliseum sucks, and no we don’t really have anywhere to build a new stadium without kicking people or businesses out. Because of that, I really don’t see us getting a football team any time soon. Our city just has too many issues, and there is too much red tape. But saying it is because LA doesn’t support their teams is just wrong.
It’s because we are incompetent.
Just wanted to get that straight.
The league was somewhat embarassed that the Panthers and Jaguars were so successful so early. The expansion draft rules among other things were a bit generous.
They intentionally set up the Browns to fail for a few years, both to correct that and to extort more public money. The NFL knew who they were awarding the next expansion franchise to for quite a while, but deliberately stalled actually selling the expansion to an owner for a long time because they were able to use the threat of relocation to Cleveland to force other cities to build new stadiums. Everyone knew Cleveland was getting a new team in 99, but so long as the NFL didn’t assign the expansion franchise, they were able to say “build a new stadium or we’ll push to move your team to Cleveland”.
So, by the time the NFL maximized that, they finally granted ownership of the new franchise a mere few months before the 1999 season. This left very little time for the franchise to build a front office, coaching staff, scouting department, facilities, etc. This, combined with the less generous expansion rules resulted in a badly managed team with little talent for quite a few years.
I don’t know the story about the Texans.
A simple combination of the stricter expansion draft (the Jags and Panthers really did get ridiculously advantageous expansion drafts) and missing with the #1 overall franchise QB. (David Carr, now a Giant, was a bust.) Nobody recovers from that quickly. Hey, come to think of it, didn’t the same thing happen to the Browns with Tim Couch?
Any franchise that drafts a QB #1 overall who turns out to be a bust is going to be set back by several years, expansion franchise or not.
I don’t think the NFL would mind one bit if the Superbowl got pushed back to late February.
Great list. Don’t forget about the Houston Oilers.
Hey now, I view the fact that LA refuses to suck the NFL’s dick and spend taxpayer money building a bunch of billionaires a shiny new stadium as a point of pride. We’ll get a team eventually, simply because the NFL needs LA (#2 TV market in the nation) a hell of a lot more than LA needs the NFL. USC never has a problem selling out the Coliseum, and UCLA manages to fill the Rose Bowl frequently. We already have two great football teams, why do we need another?
You do realize that this is retarded logic, right? Champaign, IL sells out 65,000 seat Memorial Stadium on Saturdays too. Doesn’t mean they ought to have a NFL franchise.
I applaud LA for not caving in to the NFL.
On a less serious note, I applaud LA’s two existing professional football teams, USC and UCLA! 
Any expansion team that drafts a QB first, no matter how good the QB, will never find out how could the QB is, because he’ll be crushed behind inept o-lines. Couch and Carr are exhibits 1 and 1A.
For an idea of just how opposed the NFL is to Las Vegas, when NBC last had the Super Bowl they were not allowed to put on a commercial for or even mention the TV show Las Vegas. There will never be a team in Vegas.
It will probably come after Ralph Wilson (he is 89) dies. His children have indicated they do not want the team, and the Bills are worth a lot more if they can move out of Buffalo. Add the fact that the NFL wants a team in LA, and I think they are as good as gone.
Maybe now, but then again maybe not. Getting back to the original question, Kerry Collins certainly had success in Carolina.
Tim Couch wasn’t quite as bad as David Carr. He might’ve turned out to be pretty decent if drafted onto a functional team. Not great, not worthy of the #1 overall, but he wouldn’t have been regarded as a huge bust.
The Browns were actually offered Ditka’s entire draft when he had a mega-hardon for Ricky Williams in exchange for the #1 overall pick. I’ve heard, but never had it substantiated, that the expansion team rules included that you couldn’t trade the #1 overall pick. If that was indeed a rule, what a stupid ass rule that even further cripples expansion teams. If it wasn’t a rule, then refusing the Ditka trade was among the worst draft mistakes in history.
It was amazing that the 1999 Browns won 2 games at all - they were such a talentless team totally crippled by the NFL. Fuck Tagliabue in the anus.
Edit: This isn’t particularly relevant, but it is funny to me. I notice the Bengals have a 4-12 record here on this 1999 AFC Central table. I read the other day that despite the Browns being inactive for 3 years, and despite being totally pathetic for a few more because of the way they were screwed in the expansion, that the Browns are only 3 (IIRC) wins behind Cincinatti’s total from 1990-present. They had their one good season, and all the fans that “had been there all along” crawled out of the woodwork. Now their team is set to go back to perpetual sucking and they’ve all scurried away.