NFL 2010: Will Your Team Tank and Bank The Season?

The times, like the cranky old man that crows for Pepsi on the NFL Network once sang, are a changing in the NFL.

The billionaire owners are battling the millionaire players for a bundle of bucks. Big market owners are taking bites of the pie from small market owners.

The NFL has become balkanized, or maybe it's just becoming baseball.

It's a witches brew of toil, turmoil, and trouble.  Still, who does not have some sympathy for fat greedy cats in times like these?

I mean if Mick and Keith can have sympathy for the devil, can't a PSL paying fan send some love Danny Snyder's way?

Revenue sharing is dying and some small market teams will be feeling an anaconda squeeze like crunch. Some big market teams might go to ground and use an uncapped year, which will not only lack a salary ceiling but also a salary cellar, to stash away tens of million of dollars of pure profit.

What will your team do in this merry-go-round?

Is your ball club going to be the George Steinbrenner New York Yankees of football or, like most of the league, will they become the penny-pinching Pittsburgh Pirates?

And what team will win the race to Los Angeles?

LA is the last big cash market cow in an economic climate that will perhaps forever prevent further tax payer gifted stadiums to billionaire ball club owners.

Expect the Eastern power teams, save the Bills of Buffalo, to become big money power brokers. The New York Giants and Jets, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins, and Atlanta Falcons owners all have deep pockets and major marketing punch. 

The good old boys in Texas, the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, all have big bucks and willingness to spend it. Pat Bowlen, high in the Rockies with the Denver Broncos, also has been pushing for the salary cap to go Rocky Mountain high.

And Paul Allen in Seattle, of course, has more money than all of them.

The Chicago Bears, a large market, money making machine, blew the bugle for a big retreat already by retaining the sinking ship of Lovie Smith and his dated defense. The McCaskey's are always about cashing in the dividend checks, so expect the Bears to bank some big bucks and watch their team stay dead in the water for a decade. 

The St. Louis Rams might be the LA Rams Redux soon. But if the Rams do not have a Hollywood flashback, expect another team with ownership issues or small market stadium blues to go on the road west.

The hiring of coaching guru Chan Gailey sent an exciting buzz throughout Buffalo. The Bills, they shouted in the snowy streets, are back.

Well maybe not. Maybe the hiring made Buffalo Bill fans bored.

Ralph Wilson is in his nineties and to rebuild the Bills he better be cryonically frozen. Wilson does not want to spend a lot of money at this juncture. Look for the Bills to batten down the hatches, bank the bucks, wait out the storm, and catch the next train to Toronto.

Or maybe the next bus to Los Angeles. Though Cody, Wyoming would be perfect for the Bills. Cody Bills anyone?

The Rust Belt has been in decline demographically for awhile and expect teams in Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Missouri to follow suit.

Though how much worse can Detroit Lions get? As Mister Murphy once said, things can always go from bad to worse and usually do.

Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams is no spring chicken, so perhaps he will decide to build up the estate and stash his cash while trimming his Titans.

The Jacksonville Jaguars were playing in half empty stadiums this year. Expect more of that because firing boring and boorish coach Jack Del Rio was deemed too expensive for the team. 

The Jaguars want to migrate to LA., or Mexico City, or Londontown, or anywhere not in Florida. 

The owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Glazer family, seem more interested in soccer then football. The Bucs have one of the lowest payrolls, in staff, scouting, and players, in the league and if the rumors of Glazer financial turmoil are true expect the Bucs to be slashed even deeper.

The Bidwells and Browns, of Arizona and Cincinnati respectively, are two notoriously cheap owners and expect them to become more Scrooge-like when the salary floor falls.

The Bengals might make an effort to field a bargain replacement team while the Brown clan reaps the cash windfall. For a lot of owners, it's going to be time to play "stash the cash and trash the team".

Of course, do not expect the on field product decline to be reflected in game day prices or NFL merchandise deals.

No Rube, sorry that draft beer will still be ten bucks and hey Bubba, enjoy the fill priced exhibition games.

California is a state of economic disarray and both of its teams, the San Diego Chargers and San Francisco Forty-Niners, might long for Los Angeles.

Especially the Chargers, because the Bolts have been bemoaning their stadium situation since the last decade. The Chargers came from LA and they might want to return for a sequel.

The York clan of San Francisco have been mostly a mistake ridden mess since taking control of the frugal Forty-Niners. Do not expect that to change. Expect the Niners to be even more tight fisted.

The Minnesota Vikings, in a small market and in a dome they dislike, might have reached their franchise peak in Sundays' loss to the New Orleans Saints. The Vikings brain-trust has flirted with following the Lakers to LA and the loss of revenue sharing will increase the squeeze. 

Though Los Angeles Vikings just does not sound good, the Vikings out to sail and become the London, Dublin, or Oslo Vikings.

Just imagine the home field advantage the Iceland Vikings would have in January.

And what of the Super Bowl bound Saints? The used car guru Tom Benson almost bolted to San Antonio post Katrina so it's always been on his mind. 

What happens when the revenue sharing squeezes the Saints?

Los Angeles Saints or San Antonio Saints? Small market teams scrambling for greener pastures will soon not be an uncommon thing.

Should there be Saints in La La land? Well there is jazz in Utah, so why not?

You don't think the Saints would ever leave New Orleans?

Just ask Baltimore about the Saints Super Bowl foe, the old Baltimore Colts, that made Charm City blue.

Moving vans, not five wide-out sets or eight man fronts, might be the next big thing in the NFL.

And, as a Saints fan named Fats once sang, ain't it a shame that millionaires can't work it out with billionaires in a business that generates more cash then many small nations. 

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed–for lack of a better word–is good." Gordon Gekko