LosAngelesRams
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Messages
- 3,092
Saints put every player on the team on the trade block except Brees & Cooks
- Thread starter RamsJunkie
- Start date
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Elmgrovegnome
Legend
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2013
- Messages
- 21,923
lockdnram21
Legend
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2013
- Messages
- 5,348
Boston Ram
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2013
- Messages
- 3,561
We should of been in on Grubbs, that would of been a nice fit.
Boston Ram
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2013
- Messages
- 3,561
Kenny V brother, Kenny V.
.....plus Byrd is getting paid too much for a S and didn't have a very good year last year.
Boston Ram
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2013
- Messages
- 3,561
I thought Brees cap hit is 26.4M this year and 27.4 next year. Im asking because Im not sure but I thought I read that somewhere. Nobody is taking that unless he restructures.
ZigZagRam
Pro Bowler
- Joined
- May 12, 2014
- Messages
- 1,846
The trading team would only be on the hook for the base and roster/workout bonuses I believe.
Dieter the Brock
Fourth responder
- Joined
- May 18, 2014
- Messages
- 8,196
i believe there is trouble in the benson house
http://www.expressnews.com/business...mily-battle-for-New-Orleans-teams-6122656.php
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialan...m-benson-is-more-common-than-you-may-think-2/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/s...les-suit-to-remove-teams-from-trust.html?_r=0
NEW ORLEANS — Tom Benson sat at the head of a wooden conference table unruffled in a dark business suit, with a crisp aqua necktie and a handkerchief neatly tucked in his breast pocket. One after another, the top executives who run his two teams — the NFL’s Saints and the NBA’s Pelicans — offered details about how their ad campaigns, ticket sales and digital signboards were doing.
As he listened, Benson, 87, sipped Coke from a glass that his wife, Gayle, 68, who sat at his side, kept refreshed. He asked about budgets and timetables and playfully needled an underling. When he heard the Saints media guide was being prepared for the coming season, though, he issued a command.
“Now that Gayle is going to be more involved, I want her to have a separate page,” he said.
Everyone nodded.
Gayle Benson’s future ownership of the Saints and the Pelicans is at the center of a compelling legal drama that has gripped a city that is no stranger to fevered melodrama. In January, Tom Benson announced that when he dies, the city’s cherished Saints as well as the Pelicans will be passed on to his wife of 10 years — not to his daughter, Renee Benson, and her two children, Rita and Ryan LeBlanc, as had long been assumed.
Within hours, the three filed a lawsuit that sought to have Tom Benson, the wealthiest man in Louisiana, with a fortune estimated at $1.9 billion, declared mentally unfit, and for Renee Benson to be put in charge of “Tom Benson’s property and person” to protect him.
Suddenly, New Orleans’ most prominent family was Topic A at cocktail parties and on sports radio. There is no shortage of theories: greed, jealousy and ineptitude. Or questions: Is Tom Benson feeble or frail? Is Gayle Benson a gold digger or his protector? Are his daughter and grandchildren spoiled or spurned?
“All the people who came before me that said money can’t make you happy, this proves their point,” said James Carville, a political consultant who worked with the Saints to bring the Super Bowl to New Orleans in 2013. “This has all the elements of a story that is going to last. It’s not the question of whether it’s going to be a book, but how many.”
Tom Benson, by court order, will be tested by a panel of three doctors, who will report their findings to a judge. The findings are due by Friday. If the doctors decide that he is incapable of taking care of himself, he could be in for a struggle to save an empire that he initiated almost 70 years ago while working at a local Chevrolet dealership. New Orleanians are watching: The Saints especially are considered a barometer of the city’s self-esteem, and fans worry that a struggle for the team could hurt its fortunes on the field.
“I think now people want to know what is best long-term for the Saints and New Orleans,” said Deke Bellavia, a local sports radio talk show host. “There’s been some mudslinging, but it could get real, real, real nasty.”
The Saints, who are worth $1.1 billion, and the Pelicans, valued at $650 million, are not the first professional teams to become caught in a custody battle. In 1962, the second husband of Violet Bidwill tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the St. Louis Cardinals from her sons from her first marriage. In 1994, estate taxes and feuding among the trustees of Joe Robbie’s estate prompted the sale of the Miami Dolphins to H. Wayne Huizenga. A few years later, Robert Irsay’s wife, Nancy, was unable to take over the Indianapolis Colts from the trustees, including his son, Jim.
More recently, a California state judge ruled that Rochelle Sterling had the right to sell the Los Angeles Clippers on behalf of her estranged husband, the longtime team owner Donald Sterling, after two doctors had found him incapacitated.
In New Orleans, however, the battle has gotten more personal because Renee, 59, Rita, 38, and Ryan, 35, (who refer to themselves as the Three R’s) say Tom Benson is mentally unfit and is being manipulated by Gayle Benson, his third wife.
Renee Benson, a daughter from the first marriage, and Rita and Ryan LeBlanc declined to speak for this article.
The critical legal issue in the Benson case is simply: Is Tom Benson capable of taking care of himself and his property?
In several meetings last week at the teams’ headquarters in a New Orleans suburb, Tom Benson talked at length about his work, joked amiably with colleagues and guests and recalled friends and events from years ago.
Seven operations on his knee last year have taken their toll. He walked slowly with a cane and occasionally had to fish for a date or a name. But Tom Benson said he continued to work five days a week because it kept him sharp mentally and physically.
“Some people like to play golf; I like to come to work,” he said. “Nobody makes me come here. It’s what I like to do.”
Tom Benson conceded that his daughter and grandchildren’s lawsuit was a shock but insisted that he had moved on.
“Was I surprised? I think so, because when your family attacks you, it’s kind of hard to take, hard to understand,” he said. “At first, I couldn’t believe it, you know. But I finally accepted it, and hopefully it will work out all right. The only bad thing is, you just go your way and leave us alone, you know?”
Gayle Benson, who sat next to her husband at meetings and works in a small office nearby, said the couple are apart only three days a year, when Tom Benson attends an all-male religious retreat.
“I’m with him 24 hours a day,” she said. “We have a very close relationship. He tells and talks to me a lot about what’s going on. It’s been a big help to me.”
Gayle Benson acknowledged that she knew little about football when they met a decade ago, not long after Tom Benson’s second wife died from complications of Parkinson’s disease. But over time, she has developed relationships with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and David Stern, the former NBA commissioner, as well as other owners and their wives.
“In the beginning, I was a little shy about it,” she said. “I would sit back a little bit.”
Of the other three family members, Rita LeBlanc was the most involved with the Saints as a vice chairwoman, but had an uneven record there. In 2012, Tom Benson forced her to take a sabbatical from the team because of mistreatment of co-workers and her work ethic. But several people who had worked with Rita LeBlanc came to her defense.
“Besides being an engaged partner, she was a cheerleader for the city,” said Rod West, the chief administrative officer at Entergy Corp., who worked with Rita LeBlanc and other members of the Benson family on the host committee for Super Bowl XLVII. “Particularly within the New Orleans region, Rita was the face of the Saints and Hornets to the business leaders who dealt with the committee.”
Rita LeBlanc has also been active in the movie industry, working with the Louisiana Film and Entertainment Association. She is credited with contributing to the growth of the New Orleans Film Festival.
“She’s very interested in it, been active on the board, very interested in growing the film economy here and a terrific advocate,” said Susan Brennan, who owns Second Line Studios. “She does her homework and is prepared and asks good questions.”
The family dispute also is being played out in San Antonio. In that case, Bexar County Probate Judge Tom Rickhoff appointed former San Antonio Mayor Hardberger and estate planning lawyer Art Bayern as trustees of the Shirley Benson Testamentary Trust.
The Shirley Benson trust assets are being fought over by Tom Benson, who had been the trustee, and his daughter and her two children. The trust includes 97 percent of Lone Star Capital Bank, nearly half of the holding company for three San Antonio auto dealerships and two in New Orleans and half of a 2,300-acre ranch near Johnson City. The trust’s total value could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
http://www.expressnews.com/business...mily-battle-for-New-Orleans-teams-6122656.php
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialan...m-benson-is-more-common-than-you-may-think-2/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/s...les-suit-to-remove-teams-from-trust.html?_r=0
NEW ORLEANS — Tom Benson sat at the head of a wooden conference table unruffled in a dark business suit, with a crisp aqua necktie and a handkerchief neatly tucked in his breast pocket. One after another, the top executives who run his two teams — the NFL’s Saints and the NBA’s Pelicans — offered details about how their ad campaigns, ticket sales and digital signboards were doing.
As he listened, Benson, 87, sipped Coke from a glass that his wife, Gayle, 68, who sat at his side, kept refreshed. He asked about budgets and timetables and playfully needled an underling. When he heard the Saints media guide was being prepared for the coming season, though, he issued a command.
“Now that Gayle is going to be more involved, I want her to have a separate page,” he said.
Everyone nodded.
Gayle Benson’s future ownership of the Saints and the Pelicans is at the center of a compelling legal drama that has gripped a city that is no stranger to fevered melodrama. In January, Tom Benson announced that when he dies, the city’s cherished Saints as well as the Pelicans will be passed on to his wife of 10 years — not to his daughter, Renee Benson, and her two children, Rita and Ryan LeBlanc, as had long been assumed.
Within hours, the three filed a lawsuit that sought to have Tom Benson, the wealthiest man in Louisiana, with a fortune estimated at $1.9 billion, declared mentally unfit, and for Renee Benson to be put in charge of “Tom Benson’s property and person” to protect him.
Suddenly, New Orleans’ most prominent family was Topic A at cocktail parties and on sports radio. There is no shortage of theories: greed, jealousy and ineptitude. Or questions: Is Tom Benson feeble or frail? Is Gayle Benson a gold digger or his protector? Are his daughter and grandchildren spoiled or spurned?
“All the people who came before me that said money can’t make you happy, this proves their point,” said James Carville, a political consultant who worked with the Saints to bring the Super Bowl to New Orleans in 2013. “This has all the elements of a story that is going to last. It’s not the question of whether it’s going to be a book, but how many.”
Tom Benson, by court order, will be tested by a panel of three doctors, who will report their findings to a judge. The findings are due by Friday. If the doctors decide that he is incapable of taking care of himself, he could be in for a struggle to save an empire that he initiated almost 70 years ago while working at a local Chevrolet dealership. New Orleanians are watching: The Saints especially are considered a barometer of the city’s self-esteem, and fans worry that a struggle for the team could hurt its fortunes on the field.
“I think now people want to know what is best long-term for the Saints and New Orleans,” said Deke Bellavia, a local sports radio talk show host. “There’s been some mudslinging, but it could get real, real, real nasty.”
The Saints, who are worth $1.1 billion, and the Pelicans, valued at $650 million, are not the first professional teams to become caught in a custody battle. In 1962, the second husband of Violet Bidwill tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the St. Louis Cardinals from her sons from her first marriage. In 1994, estate taxes and feuding among the trustees of Joe Robbie’s estate prompted the sale of the Miami Dolphins to H. Wayne Huizenga. A few years later, Robert Irsay’s wife, Nancy, was unable to take over the Indianapolis Colts from the trustees, including his son, Jim.
More recently, a California state judge ruled that Rochelle Sterling had the right to sell the Los Angeles Clippers on behalf of her estranged husband, the longtime team owner Donald Sterling, after two doctors had found him incapacitated.
In New Orleans, however, the battle has gotten more personal because Renee, 59, Rita, 38, and Ryan, 35, (who refer to themselves as the Three R’s) say Tom Benson is mentally unfit and is being manipulated by Gayle Benson, his third wife.
Renee Benson, a daughter from the first marriage, and Rita and Ryan LeBlanc declined to speak for this article.
The critical legal issue in the Benson case is simply: Is Tom Benson capable of taking care of himself and his property?
In several meetings last week at the teams’ headquarters in a New Orleans suburb, Tom Benson talked at length about his work, joked amiably with colleagues and guests and recalled friends and events from years ago.
Seven operations on his knee last year have taken their toll. He walked slowly with a cane and occasionally had to fish for a date or a name. But Tom Benson said he continued to work five days a week because it kept him sharp mentally and physically.
“Some people like to play golf; I like to come to work,” he said. “Nobody makes me come here. It’s what I like to do.”
Tom Benson conceded that his daughter and grandchildren’s lawsuit was a shock but insisted that he had moved on.
“Was I surprised? I think so, because when your family attacks you, it’s kind of hard to take, hard to understand,” he said. “At first, I couldn’t believe it, you know. But I finally accepted it, and hopefully it will work out all right. The only bad thing is, you just go your way and leave us alone, you know?”
Gayle Benson, who sat next to her husband at meetings and works in a small office nearby, said the couple are apart only three days a year, when Tom Benson attends an all-male religious retreat.
“I’m with him 24 hours a day,” she said. “We have a very close relationship. He tells and talks to me a lot about what’s going on. It’s been a big help to me.”
Gayle Benson acknowledged that she knew little about football when they met a decade ago, not long after Tom Benson’s second wife died from complications of Parkinson’s disease. But over time, she has developed relationships with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and David Stern, the former NBA commissioner, as well as other owners and their wives.
“In the beginning, I was a little shy about it,” she said. “I would sit back a little bit.”
Of the other three family members, Rita LeBlanc was the most involved with the Saints as a vice chairwoman, but had an uneven record there. In 2012, Tom Benson forced her to take a sabbatical from the team because of mistreatment of co-workers and her work ethic. But several people who had worked with Rita LeBlanc came to her defense.
“Besides being an engaged partner, she was a cheerleader for the city,” said Rod West, the chief administrative officer at Entergy Corp., who worked with Rita LeBlanc and other members of the Benson family on the host committee for Super Bowl XLVII. “Particularly within the New Orleans region, Rita was the face of the Saints and Hornets to the business leaders who dealt with the committee.”
Rita LeBlanc has also been active in the movie industry, working with the Louisiana Film and Entertainment Association. She is credited with contributing to the growth of the New Orleans Film Festival.
“She’s very interested in it, been active on the board, very interested in growing the film economy here and a terrific advocate,” said Susan Brennan, who owns Second Line Studios. “She does her homework and is prepared and asks good questions.”
The family dispute also is being played out in San Antonio. In that case, Bexar County Probate Judge Tom Rickhoff appointed former San Antonio Mayor Hardberger and estate planning lawyer Art Bayern as trustees of the Shirley Benson Testamentary Trust.
The Shirley Benson trust assets are being fought over by Tom Benson, who had been the trustee, and his daughter and her two children. The trust includes 97 percent of Lone Star Capital Bank, nearly half of the holding company for three San Antonio auto dealerships and two in New Orleans and half of a 2,300-acre ranch near Johnson City. The trust’s total value could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Zombie Slayer
You are entitled to nothing.
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2013
- Messages
- 935
- Name
- Dave
If they are retooling, why did they trade Graham and now Brees? This makes no sense to me. Graham should be a player you build around. They should trade Brees and draft a qb this year. I don't see why you would start a rebuild with an older qb and no one on the roster to be the next guy. Plus they're over the cap so keeping his large contract makes no sense. Of course it is possible they've already tried to trade him, but I would think that someone would want him to make a run at a championship. Someone like the Bills.
Boston Ram
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2013
- Messages
- 3,561
That's why I bring the tough questions to you! You always have the answers. Thanks
Thordaddy
Binding you with ancient logic
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,462
- Name
- Rich
Hell yes to free up our first to take Amari Cooper
jsimcox
Pro Bowler
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2012
- Messages
- 1,378
- Name
- Jamie
Strange one, surely Stills is still on his rookie contract? They can't be saving that much money by trading him?
Can only imagine Miami must have made them an excellent offer. They're going to need as many draft picks as possible to replenish their roster by the looks of things...
V3
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2013
- Messages
- 3,848
This isn't the draft to be stocking up on picks. Was the pick for next year's draft?