[CBFF] Evaluating and ranking all the NFL owners

[Tom Shannon]

In good (and bad) hands

 

 

 

Evaluating and ranking all the NFL owners, from 1-32

 

The Dallas Cowboys' team charter had begun its initial descent, and Bill
Parcells settled into his first-class seat and prepared for an uneventful
touchdown. The Cowboys had a road game against the New England Patriots the
following day, and Parcells, one of the NFL's biggest control freaks, had
mapped out a specific itinerary for his players. 

 

But on this mid-November evening in 2003, the Dallas coach still didn't
realize where the plane was about to land. Because the team was staying in
Providence, Parcells assumed the Cowboys would be arriving in that city and
taking a short bus ride to their hotel. There was only one catch: That night
the families of Dallas owner Jerry Jones and Patriots owner Robert Kraft
were scheduled to dine together -- in Boston. Rather than drive there from
Providence, Jones had chosen to have the plane land at Logan Airport, where
several buses were waiting to transport Parcells, his players and the rest
of the team's traveling party 60 miles to the south. 

 

The stunned Parcells undoubtedly simmered during his hour-long bus trip to
Rhode Island, especially given his contentious relationship with Kraft
dating back to his stint as the Pats' coach from 1993-96. Picturing the two
families enjoying an upscale dinner probably made the coach want to hurl. 

 

Yet Parcells never said a peep to his boss. As a man who'd spent more than a
quarter-century working in the NFL, he knew a good deal when he saw one. 

Bizarre as it sounds, even in the world's most prosperous professional
sports league, a good owner is hard to find. 

 

With so much money at stake, and so many big egos involved, you'd think
there'd be good owners in every NFL city, or close to it. The truth is much
more depressing than that, though the football fans of Dallas and New
England certainly have reason to smile. So, in honor of Parcells' long bus
ride, here are our first NFL owner rankings, with many factors considered,
the biggest of all being this: If you're a fan of the team in question, how
happy should you be about the person or people running the show? 

 

Top Shelf

 

1. Robert Kraft, Patriots; 2. Jerry Jones, Cowboys 

 

Kraft and Jones have many similarities. Each has parlayed controversial
coaching hires into three Super Bowl rings. Both men have smart,
forward-thinking eldest sons who play major roles in running the team and
wield influence within the NFL -- Patriots president Jonathan Kraft was
instrumental in forging the revenue-pool compromise that led to labor peace
in March, and Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones has spearheaded
the team's drive toward a new stadium. And best of all, both owners care
deeply about two things: making money and winning, not necessarily in that
order. 

 

A long-suffering season-ticket holder before he bought the team, Kraft still
cares deeply about the fan experience, and he and his son have created a
successful business model that allows the Patriots to thrive without
overspending on marquee free agents. Jones, upon entering the league in
1989, became an entrepreneurial upstart in a league of sluggish old-liners
enjoying the fruits of de facto communism. His successful efforts to
increase the Cowboys' revenue have been exemplary and often emulated, and he
has been willing to pour a significant portion of his profits back into the
franchise in search of on-field excellence.

 

3. Dan Snyder, Redskins; 4. Wayne Huizenga, Dolphins; 5. Jeffrey Lurie,
Eagles; 6. Jerry Richardson, Panthers; 7. Bob McNair, Texans; 8. Malcolm,
Bryan, Joel and Ed Glazer, Buccaneers; 9. Pat Bowlen, BroncosI can't believe
I'm ranking Snyder this high, and a lot of people I know around the league
are going to brutalize me for doing so, but right now Dan is The Man in two
big ways: He has turned the franchise he loves into a money-making machine,
and his willingness to spend that money in pursuit of victory is second to
none. Plus, since his hiring of Joe Gibbs as coach, he has begun to learn to
get out of the way on the football side.  

Huizenga is a shrewd businessman and a big spender who deserves a title in
something other than baseball one of these years. Lurie hires good people --
particularly team president Joe Banner -- and, though I don't always agree
with it, sticks to a system when it comes to player-valuation. Richardson
runs his smaller-market team like it's one of the big boys, and as a former
player he understands the game on every level. He wants to win, badly, and
has been doing so as of late. McNair has deep pockets and a horseman's flair
for high-stakes gambles. His moves haven't paid off yet, but he is hell-bent
on bringing Houston a winner. Many Brits would like to do to the Glazers
what former Manchester United star David Beckham does to soccer balls, and
Malcolm and his sons have done some truly annoying things on U.S. soil, like
their embarrassing, last-second spurning of Marvin Lewis four years ago. But
overall, they've turned a dead NFL market into a flourishing enterprise,
with a solid stadium situation (pirate ship and all), one of the league's
highest-revenue operations and a habitually competitive team. Bowlen has his
quirks, and he gets hammered in Denver for his undying allegiance to Mike
Shanahan, but it's tough to argue with

success: Shanahan has won two Super Bowls and continues to field a
competitive team, the Broncos play in a sparkling new stadium, and executive
VP Joe Ellis does a good job on the business side. Keeping it Real

 

10. Dan Rooney, Steelers; 11. Bob Harlan/John Jones/Green Bay Packers Inc.;
12. Lamar Hunt, ChiefsSome might argue that Rooney isn't progressive enough,
and the Steelers have certainly sacrificed talent over the years because of
the bottom line. But you will never hear a discouraging word about Rooney
from me. 

And right now the best of the old-guard owners is the man of the hour. Among
the many things for which he deserves credit: Getting a new stadium built
without ever having to threaten to move, and keeping ticket prices
affordable in the process. The Packers' ownership situation -- the club has
been a publicly owned, nonprofit corporation since 1923 -- is a testament to
collective unselfishness and civic commitment. Harlan, an exemplary CEO,
will step down next year, with current president Jones as his successor.
Coming off a resplendent stadium renovation in the league's only small
market, the franchise is cruising, even as the team rebuilds and bids
farewell to an icon. Hunt works hard to generate revenue in a
less-attractive market and spends money on players. He also has the
self-confidence to give his most powerful employee, Carl Peterson, three
high-level titles (president, general manager, CEO), though this owner's
last league title came more than 3½ decades ago. Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy

 

13. Jimmy Irsay, ColtsA lot of people think Irsay is a flake, but if so,
he's my kind of flake -- a guy who quotes Dylan lyrics and dresses on game
day like he's backstage at the Stones. Given that his late father, by most
accounts, was sort of a nightmare, I give Irsay props for falling far from
the tree. He also got a stadium deal done in Indy and, though I'd rather eat
Field Turf than hang out with Bill Polian (and I'm sure the feeling is
mutual), hired a sharp team president and deferred to him on football
decisions. 

14. Steve Bisciotti, Ravens; 15. Arthur Blank, Falcons; 16. Woody Johnson,
Jets; 17. Paul Allen, Seahawks; 18. John Mara and Jonathan Tisch, GiantsAs
much as I enjoyed the perverse theater of Bisciotti's emasculation of Brian
Billick , doing your coach like that in public might not be the smartest
business move. That said, Bisciotti is a marked improvement over predecessor
Art Modell, who mixed small-minded passivity on the league front with petty
greed on the 

team level. Like everyone in this group, Bisciotti is capable of being
great.   

Blank's an engaging guy, and he looks like he might have been a character in
Boogie Nights, so I'm inclined to throw him some love. But for all of his
talk about turning the Falcons into a model franchise, he has yet to fulfill
that vision -- and the Atlanta market, which could be one of the league's
most lucrative, remains relatively untapped. Johnson, who inherited the bulk
of his fortune, hasn't wowed anyone with his business acumen. On a positive
note, he does seem to want to win and is willing to spend to do so. That
said, he got played by Peterson in the Herm Edwards negotiations and
ultimately let his emotions (over what he perceived as Edwards' lack of
loyalty) get in the way of his best business interests. Bill Gates, Allen's
fellow Microsoft co-founder, has given millions to charitable causes --
while Allen has contributed similar amounts to the bank account of coach
Mike Holmgren, who parlayed his first playoff victories in eight seasons
into yet another lucrative extension this past offseason. To Allen's credit,
he finally got rid of prickly team president Bob Whitsitt (of Jail Blazers
fame) after the 2004 season and brought in a strong GM in Tim Ruskell. But
Allen, despite his obvious ability to write checks, remains a distant figure
who has failed to realize his enormous managerial potential. The Giants'
owners haven't really gone after it in the past, instead running a noble but
old-school operation that left a lot of potential on the table. 

But the next generation has a chance to step it up, and Mara in particular
has impressed many of his peers with a desire to invigorate his franchise
and an understanding that the league has changed since the days when his
late father, Wellington, rose to prominence. Out to Lunch

 

19. Alex Spanos, Chargers; 20. Zygi Wilf, Vikings; 21. Randy Lerner, Browns;
22. William Clay and Bill Ford, Lions; 23. Georgia Frontiere, Rams; 24.
Wayne Weaver, JaguarsSpanos seems far more passionate about the Republican
Party (his family ranks among the GOP's leading contributors) than winning
football games, and his not-so-subtle attempts to creep into the L.A./Orange
County market will likely be rebuffed by his more progressive peers. He's
currently sitting back and tolerating a feud between his media-repelling GM,
A.J. Smith, and coach Marty Schottenheimer, which doesn't bode well for
Chargers fans. Wilf, like a certain high-profile leader with a plummeting
approval rating, talks a big game -- he threatened during a locker room rant
to cut the players responsible for the Vikings' infamous "Love Boat" party
last fall -- but hasn't bothered to deliver. His first big front-office
hire, former Chargers scouting director Fran Foley, blew up after three
months. Lerner is intelligent and willing to spend, but it's questionable
how much he cares about winning, as evidenced by his decision not to live in
Cleveland. The franchise has been through constant front-office turmoil,
with last winter's feud between newly hired general manager Phil Savage and
then-president John Collins the most blatant example. If Bill Ford
approached his NFL stewardship with the same degree of sincerity he
displayed in those folksy TV ads a couple of years back, the Lions might be
humming as a franchise, rather than sputtering into the garage. Frontiere,
despite maintaining a plush, three-bedroom suite at the team's training
facility, is basically an absentee owner these days, leaving team president
John Shaw to run the show. Shaw is smart, personable and savvy, but his
indecisiveness helped foster a dysfunctional atmosphere at Rams Park,
although he appears to have been reenergized since the dismissal of Mike
Martz as coach. Weaver, rather than giving thanks for his good fortune -- he
landed an expansion franchise in overmatched Jacksonville, then charmed his
fellow owners into giving him a Super Bowl (the worst locale in history, by
far), and thousands of extra tickets to boot, to help fund stadium
improvements -- instead spends his time griping. He acts like it's a
surprise that generating revenue in Jacksonville is a difficult task; his
name should be Whine Weaver. 

    

25. Al Davis, RaidersRaiders chief executive Amy Trask says her boss, who
turns 77 on the Fourth of July, "is as vital and vibrant as ever."
Unfortunately, his franchise is in ICU, with dubious talent and a miserable
stadium situation made worse over the years by lawsuits, Davis' aversion to
marketing (because, after all, they're the  Raiders, and everybody loves
them) and an initial miscalculation of a once-rabid fan base's collective
fervor. The good news is that Davis cares about nothing besides the Raiders;
the myth, however, is that he wants to win at all costs. That fallacy was
exposed when Marcus Allen mysteriously disappeared on third downs and in
goal-line situations in the early '90s, and it suffered another blow when
Davis decided not to try to extend Jon Gruden's contract after the coach led
the team to the AFC Championship Game in his third season. 

26. Bud Adams, Titans; 27. Ralph Wilson, Bills; 28. Denise DeBartolo and
John York, 49ers; 29. Michael McCaskey, BearsAdams is so obsessed with
one-upping Houston, the town from which he moved the franchise a decade ago,
that he essentially mandated the drafting of native son Vince Young with the
third overall pick. However that works out in the long run, Adams is likely
to blow it after this season by getting rid of Jeff Fisher, one of the best
coaches in the business. Wilson, perhaps the league's least progressive
owner, whines so much he makes Weaver look like Jimmy Stewart at the end of
It's a Wonderful Life. 

Even after big-market owners like Kraft and Snyder, in a quest for labor
peace, embraced a compromise that would transfer some of their revenues into
Wilson's coffers, Wilson threw a public tantrum and voted against the
proposal. We have devoted plenty of Open Mike real estate to the Yorks'
failings, from John's condescending managerial approach to the couple's
unwillingness to spend the money it takes to compete for a championship, so
we'll keep this short: To borrow from Jeff Spicoli ... No stars, no stadium,
no dice. McCaskey, who once did so miserably as a manager that his mother
banished him to lawn duty, has the distinction of serving as chairman of the
board of what one owner called "the most undermanaged outfit in the league."
Think about it: All that tradition, the nation's No. 3 media market, and the
Bears are still living off a Saturday Night Live sketch and a lone Super
Bowl title from more than two decades ago. 

The Killer Bs

 

30. Mike Brown, Bengals; 31. Bill Bidwill, Cardinals; 32. Tom Benson,
SaintsThe Bengals like to claim that their image as a chintzy operation is
outdated, and it's true that Brown's hiring of Marvin Lewis -- and the
accompanying decision to give the new coach more power than his predecessors
-- ushered in a new era of competitive viability in Cincy. But the numbers
don't lie: From the start of free agency in 1994 through 2005, the Bengals,
out of the 28 franchises who've existed that long (excluding the Jaguars,
Panthers, reformed Browns and Texans), rank 27th in actual cash spending
with $747 million paid out -- ahead of only the Cardinals at $735 million.
"And that," says the league source who gave me the numbers, "is like being
ahead of a dead relative." Brown was also the one who recently questioned
the salary of Paul Tagliabue, complaining in a league meeting that the
outgoing commissioner makes too much money and that no one had checked with
Brown before signing off on Tags' deal. Bidwill, like Brown, is hoping that
his recent decision to hire a good coach with increased power (Denny Green)
will lead to on-field satisfaction, and he should be commended for signing
off on the sizable deal that landed halfback Edgerrin James via free agency.
But again, we defer to the body of work. Oddly enough, Bidwill, who after
moving the franchise from St. Louis in the mid-80s immediately alienated his
new fan base by charging the league's highest ticket prices, went the other
way upon the construction of the team's soon-to-be-opened stadium: 

He offered some season-ticket packages for as low as $100, or $10 a game. 

"Then he brags about selling out the stadium," one owner scoffs. "Talk about
undervaluing your product." Adds a former NFL owner: "He should give away
hot dogs, too." Last and least is Benson, the car salesman who both
mismanages his franchise and doesn't appear all that stressed about adding
to the misery of a suffering region. Before Tagliabue stepped in and decreed
that the Saints would return to New Orleans -- at least for now -- Benson
seemed content to remain in San Antonio, where he coincidentally has a home,
while casting a wistful eye toward the L.A. market. So for the time being
Benson will be bringing his ridiculous "Boogie" back to the Superdome and
hoping that karma doesn't actually exist.