During a Thursday appearance on PFT Live, former Eagles president Joe Banner spoke about his decision to leave the post he’d held for years. Banner said that he has a goal of being part of a group that purchases an NFL team.
The problem is, few if any teams are for sale. One will be, in time.
The family of 93-year-old Bills owner Ralph Wilson are expected, following his passing, to sell the team.
According to Howard Eskin of NBC 10, that’s one of the teams Banner will target. Eskin also mentions the Browns and Rams as possibilities. Eskin says he hears both are for sale; that would frankly be bigger news than Banner’s interest in them.
“It’s really a replication of what I did with [Eagles owner] Jeff [Lurie],” Banner said of his plan for the future. “I started working with Jeff about a year and a half before we actually walked into the Eagles the first time and we developed a relationship and a shared philosophy and worked together on the process of the acquisition, which we really had to do twice by the way because at one point we were going to buy the Patriots but then that fell through, and then had to go through the process all over again and then ended up here in Philadelphia.
“So that’s the dream that is most prevalent to me and that I intend to kind of focus my time and efforts on and see if I can’t put I together. It will be a big challenge, nobody in my position has ever actually been able to do that, not sure how many people have even tried, but the depth of that challenge doesn’t scare me off and as I’ve been saying soon this decisions will either prove to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done or one of the most courageous things I’ve ever done. You know, we’ll see over some time.”
Mentioning no specific teams that would be targeted, Banner said he’s already talking to people with whom he possibly could partner. He said that, ideally, the franchise purchased would require the kind of internal turnaround over which Lurie and Banner presided in Philly.
Still, the first challenge will be to find a team that is available to be purchased. The Bills eventually will be. Others could become available. Unfortunately, there’s no showroom at which a would-be NFL owner can shop.