FanHouse Ralph Wilson

For an NFL coach, the final week of the preseason is a time to tinker. To take care of your nagging little housekeeping items. You watch the borderline guys battle it out on special teams and you make your final roster decisions. You pick a No. 3 quarterback. You catch up on the last couple of episodes of "Hard Knocks." You fire your offensive coordinator.

Wait. What?

I don't have any empirical evidence, but anecdotally it seems that once you hit, say, 70 years old, telling the truth becomes almost instinctual. That sounds like a virtue -- and it usually is -- but it also means that much of what is filtered in our younger years isn't in old age. And, for the most part, I think that makes for a better world.

Take Bills owner Ralph Wilson, for example. He's 90, recently inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and frank as hell about why he decided to go after Terrell Owens.

"I said, 'Sign him,' " Wilson told the Associated Press, recalling his conversation with Bills general manager Russ Brandon. "In Buffalo, we haven't had a national figure publicity-wise since (Jim) Kelly.... So I thought, 'If this guy's a bad guy, so what? If he's a bad guy we'll have to get rid of him. But if he's a good guy, hey, we're ahead of the game.' "

---

---

CANTON, Ohio -- A Buffalo Bills fan at Saturday's Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony honored the franchise's founder/owner Ralph Wilson in an appropriate way: the man wore a Bills-emblazoned hard hat adorned with spinning covered wagons.

That symbolizes how Wilson staunchly defends his small market franchise, which has experienced large market success under his loving watch: two AFL championships (1964-65) and four AFC titles in 1990-93 that led to an unprecedented four consecutive Super Bowl appearances.

Often described as the "conscience" of the NFL, Wilson's legacy as one of the founding fathers of the American Football League received the ultimate validation when he was the first of the Class of 2009 to be formally inducted into the Hall of Fame.

---

---

As far as the United States Justice system is concerned, Michael Vick has served his debt to society. He spent the last 19 months in the clink, and now he's kicking it in his mansion. The terms of his probation stipulate that he get a job (his construction gig starts next week) and remain under house arrest when he's not wearing a hard hat.

But there will come a time when he seeks to return to the NFL. The first order of business is getting commissioner Roger Goodell to reinstate him, and then finding a club interested in his services. The former will be tougher than the latter, although neither appear insurmountable.

The Eagles are a better team this morning. They've replaced aging Tra Thomas with one of the best, young left tackles in the game, Jason Peters. It cost them a handful of draft picks (including the 28th overall selection next week), but the club still has the 21st pick, and can use it to assuage Donovan McNabb's concerns by taking an impact offensive player. Possible candidates: running back Knowshon Moreno, tight end Brandon Pettigrew, or any of the remaining wideouts on the board.

Eagles head coach Andy Reid described Peters as "the best left tackle in football," which might be overstating it a bit, particularly after a rocky 2008 campaign. Still, Peters is in the top five, and he improves a team that, despite a tumultuous regular season, was a lousy quarter of football away from the Super Bowl.

TAMPA, Fla. – This morning in the Super Bowl media center, I spotted Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy chatting with a couple of members of the media who are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors. A little bit of eavesdropping revealed that Levy was lobbying on behalf of some of his players, and the Bills' longtime owner.

One of Levy's old players, Bruce Smith, is eligible for the Hall of Fame for the first time this year. Smith is one of the greatest defensive ends in history, and he is virtually assured of being selected on Saturday. So Levy doesn't have a lot of work to do there.

On Tuesday, the NFL announced the finalists for the 2009 Hall of Fame class, a list that contains the NFL's all-time sack leader, a current owner, a former commissioner, and six first-time finalists.

The voters will select a minimum of four and a maximum of seven new members on January 31. The complete list of finalists after the jump.

Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson said today that head coach Dick Jauron will return in 2009.

Despite signing a contract extension during the season, Jauron was on the hot seat because of the Bills' late-season collapse. But Wilson released the following statement today:

"It is well known that I share many of the fans' dissatisfaction with our offensive game management. That being said, I believe that this team, at this time, is better served by continuity in the coaching staff rather than a disruptive overhaul. The team played hard all year long and there are many positives to build on. This is not to say that we will be complacent. In my discussions with Dick and our senior football people the issues are recognized and I am confident they will be addressed."

Jauron has gone 7-9 in each of his three seasons in Buffalo.

The Buffalo Bills are in a pretty sticky situation -- they've always been owned by Ralph Wilson and, well, he's very old. Additionally, the NFL is slowly (and not very subtly) moving the team to Toronto.

So there's some good news on that front for Buffalonians (go with it -- it just sounds right) in that supposedly, Jim Kelly is interested in purchasing the team.

With the family of the only owner in Bills history already making it known that they won't keep the team after Ralph Wilson (now 90 years old) passes on, Peter King of NBC reports that Buffalo Hall of Famer quarterback Jim Kelly is trying to put a group together that would buy the team.

It's unclear whether Kelly's group would purchase the franchise in the short term, or whether the deal would wait until Mr. Wilson is playing pinochle with former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.

The downside here is that obviously, Kelly would have to get this puppy locked up before Wilson died, otherwise it's first come, first serve + most money for figuring out who will get the team.

And that's mildly problematic in that right now, I'm willing to bet that people aren't gung ho about coughing up their hard earned cash to try and buy a football team. Also problematic: Wilson doesn't really have any interest in selling, if you believe what he says.

Still, it's an admirable effort at least, and I for one wish Kelly the best of luck in procuring the Bills. Although, I also will almost certainly wholeheartedly welcome our new Canadian overlords whenever they show up.

So, I'm driving around running some errands and decide to listen to the local sports talk radio. I live in Cincinnati now, so most of the talk is pretty bad. Fans are tired of talking about all the little reasons why the Bengals are bad. The main reason is something that cannot be fixed: owner Mike Brown.

Brown is one of those cheap owners who inherited his organization (from his legend of a father) but doesn't know how to organize it. The story keeps on going, but it just ends with him being a bad owner (just one winning season in the 16 full seasons he has owned the team). Even his Wikipedia page says he is one of the worst owners in professional sports.

On the radio today, they were discussing the sad fact that fans would actually be cheering Mike Brown dying and the team being run by someone else. What? You'd cheer a man's death just so your football team can be better?

It happens. Remember how fans booed during a moment of silence for Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz a year ago? Wirtz was very unpopular and fans viewed his death as a great moment for their hockey club.