The gentle art of coercion

"You got a nice football team here. Be a shame if somethin' happened to it."

And, OK, so that is NOT what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told the good people of Buffalo yesterday.

Not exactly, anyway. Not ... altogether.

But the Hammer was in Billstown yesterday, and he did say the old stadium had been renovated as much as it could be renovated, and it was time to suck it up and shell out for a new stadium so "we can make sure the Bills are here and successful for many, many decades going forward."

A "private-public partnership," the Hammer said, would be the ideal solution. The translation for which (since the Blob can't resist being cynical about this ageless con) would be this: Yes, we're going to get in your knickers again, Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer. All so you can pay for the privilege of paying for the privilege of gaining entry to a stadium that wouldn't have been built without your money. Don't worry, we won't charge you more than 20 bucks to park, 10 bucks for a beer and a few hundred for a seat license that entitles you to purchase season tickets for a few more hundred.

Oh, it is the perennial of perennials, this new stadium strong-arming. It's been going on since long before the city of Indianapolis built the Hoosier Dome for Bob Irsay, and the only revision is the folks doing the strong-arming have become slicker with its language.

These days it's the art of coercion practiced gently, which doesn't alter the fact it's still coercion. The spokesperson for team owners Kim and Terry Pegula, Jim Wilkinson, revealed as much when he noted that a proposed deal for a new $1.2 billion stadium in Orchard Park couldn't go forward until Erie County got off the schneid and hammered out a deal with them.

"The city of Buffalo and the state are going to have to decide if they want a team," Wilkinson said.

Hell of a thing to say about a city that's supported pro football for 61 years.

The Bills were a charter member of the American Football League, and they play in a city which sits in the mouth of a weather shotgun at the east end of Lake Erie. You've gotta be a hardy soul to show up for Bills games after Halloween, but somehow hardy souls keep doing it. And have for six decades.

Now some hump has the nerve to question whether or not they want a team?

Yeesh. Same old, same old.