BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

[YardRat]

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/billstuff1.8.08.html

Two years ago Marv Levy returned to the Buffalo Bills with a dual purpose -- restore some cohesion to a franchise that had disintegrated into chaos under the malevolent rule of Tom Donahoe and get the Buffalo Bills back to the playoffs.


Levy's success in the first area was reflected at the box office -- Ralph Wilson Stadium was sold out for all eight regular-season home games, as a scrappy team endured an early-autumn tsunami of season-ending injuries and stayed in postseason contention until mid-December.
The way the Bills pulled together after Kevin Everett was temporarily, as it turns out, paralyzed on Opening Day, the emergence of Trent Edwards at quarterback, the Monday Night near-miss against Dallas and the hot streak that followed, the speed with which Marshawn Lynch erased any memory of Willis McPaternitysuit, or whatever his name was -- the arc of the 2007 season spoke to Levy's emphasis on stocking the roster with players who cared about winning and each other. His Bills didn't achieve the ultimate goal, though, and spent this Wild Card Weekend much as they had the previous seven -- watching on television, wondering what needs to be done to get back into a tournament to which entry seemed a given during Levy's coaching days.

[SquishDaFish]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

Totally agree he got us a personal Identity. Now its time to keep it going and get a couple more key pieces and get another good draft under our belts

[G. Host]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

Marv as a consultant can still come in and give pep talks, mediate disputes, etc without doing the business things he disliked which were more items a president should have been doing anyways.

[Nighthawk]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

I don't really see it, that's me.

[B-DON]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

I don't really see it, that's me.

then take off the blinders

[Nighthawk]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

then take off the blinders

Show me how they're better? Don't give me this crap about everybody loves each other at One Bills Drive, show me how they are better on the football field??? Are they better on offense? Umm, no. Are they better on defense? Umm, no. Are they better in the win/loss column? Umm, no.

All of this said, I think you are the one who needs to take off the blinders.

[feelthepain]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/...uff1.8.08.html

Two years ago Marv Levy returned to the Buffalo Bills with a dual purpose -- restore some cohesion to a franchise that had disintegrated into chaos under the malevolent rule of Tom Donahoe and get the Buffalo Bills back to the playoffs.


Levy's success in the first area was reflected at the box office -- Ralph Wilson Stadium was sold out for all eight regular-season home games, as a scrappy team endured an early-autumn tsunami of season-ending injuries and stayed in postseason contention until mid-December.
The way the Bills pulled together after Kevin Everett was temporarily, as it turns out, paralyzed on Opening Day, the emergence of Trent Edwards at quarterback, the Monday Night near-miss against Dallas and the hot streak that followed, the speed with which Marshawn Lynch erased any memory of Willis McPaternitysuit, or whatever his name was -- the arc of the 2007 season spoke to Levy's emphasis on stocking the roster with players who cared about winning and each other. His Bills didn't achieve the ultimate goal, though, and spent this Wild Card Weekend much as they had the previous seven -- watching on television, wondering what needs to be done to get back into a tournament to which entry seemed a given during Levy's coaching days.

How many games did the Bills win before Marv returned and who many games have they won since his arrival? That's all you need to know.

[SquishDaFish]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

And how much do the Phish suck?? Yea thanx for your Wisdom FTP.

[Night Train]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

Marv settled down a fractious front office (due to TD) and got people together who talk,listen & respect each others opinions ( Modrak,Jauron,Guy etc .) .

The product on the field has changed direction and is still a work in progress. At this point, one cannot say it's better than before because it's not being reflected on game day. We win over the really bad teams but stuggle badly against any average team or above.

That's not good and to expect improvement to a 9-10 win year 2008 is justified for this current regime. The excuse meter is tapped. Put up or shut up.

Or we're back to rebuilding again.

[don137]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

I think the Bills have much better character players and got rid of a lot of the cancers on the team. The problem is their is only so much you can do with cash to cap. You have no margin of error when other teams spend millions more on personnell and coaching.
I think the core players are better but this team will never be championship caliber while being cash to cap. Cash to cap is the recipe for mediocrity and that is where we are at.

[Wys Guy]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

Totally agree he got us a personal Identity. Now its time to keep it going and get a couple more key pieces and get another good draft under our belts

A "personal identity?"

You wouldn't care to elaborate, would ya?

[justasportsfan]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

A "personal identity?"

You wouldn't care to elaborate, would ya?

Players *****ing about their coaches but thats been here since Donahoe. The difference is that we have high character players *****ing about playcalling.

[Wys Guy]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

I don't really see it, that's me.

It's not you. Staba's usually pretty much on, but after reading this piece I dare say he must have written after going out drinking with team officials.

"Jauron deserves credit for keeping the Bills in contention late into two seasons during which they ranked near the bottom of the league in both offense and defense. But he and his staff can hardly be held blameless for the need to overcome those obstacles. "

Jauron should be on his knees before the proverbial schedule makers and thankful that five close games all more or less going down to the wire were won instead of lost to low-end teams.

"Buffalo played seven games against playoff teams and lost six of them, five of them in blowouts."

Practically the Dallas game was a blowout too. I mean how many yards would Dallas have had beyond the near 400 that they got w/ 6 TOs. We got our butts handed to us in that game as well. We were simply fortunate enough to have had a return TD and two INT returns for TDs make that game appear much, much, much closer than it was too. Yes, score wise it was not a blowout, but performance wise it was just as much a blowout as the others. Ditto for the Denver game except that they were not a playoff team.

"True, Edwards looked like a rookie during the final skid, particularly in the brutal weather at Cleveland and at home against the Giants. But up to that point, he showed more consistency and awareness of what was happening around him than did Losman in more than two years as the anointed quarterback of the future. "

Right David. And in spite of that he was even less effective than Losman's ever been. Got it!

"It is perfectly understandable that Losman would want out of Buffalo. Wichard's suggestion that Losman feels somehow betrayed shows how incredibly myopic professional athletes, and their representatives, can be."

Myopic? I'd say visionary and one of the few that realizes that this team ain't goin' anywhere before Wilson sells it, whenever that will be which will be when he dies.

Of course absolutely no mention in this article that after two seasons along with numerous Levy-endorsed and validate "offensive upgrades" that we were the worst, meaning 32nd of 32, ranked scoring offense both in total as well as within the red zone.

Did prior teams rank dead last? I don't think so!

And in the midst of all he says supporting the notion that this team is "better than before Levy" he says this;

"Offensively, Buffalo's results didn't match its talent. The back-and-forth between Edwards and J.P. Losman, caused by injuries to both and the ineptitude of the latter, didn't do much for continuity. Neither did the reluctance of offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild to creatively use weapons like Lynch, Lee Evans and Roscoe Parrish. Fairchild's strategic meekness was particularly painful to watch on the road, where his game plans worked quite well -- if the ultimate goal was to avoid the opposing end zone. His offenses scored all of five touchdowns in eight games away from Orchard Park, none of them in the final three contests."

Come again!

"Levy's success in the first area was reflected at the box office -- Ralph Wilson Stadium was sold out for all eight regular-season home games, as a scrappy team endured an early-autumn tsunami of season-ending injuries and stayed in postseason contention until mid-December. "

Right, and I'm sure that Giants, Jets, Patriots and perhaps even fans of other NFL teams were very grateful to be able to buy tens of thousands of tickets due to availability.

This team is statistically worse than it was during the Donadope era, even when they left.

It has no impact players as the few that were here on the transition are now gone. Neither draftee nor free agent has stepped up to replace them. Just as in the Donadope era past prime, backups, and just poor players get paid far more than their worth on a comparative basis.

This team has no talent and not one player on O or D that our opponents must even think about "planning for," not one.

Again, it's not you Nighthawk!

[Wys Guy]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

Show me how they're better? Don't give me this crap about everybody loves each other at One Bills Drive, show me how they are better on the football field??? Are they better on offense? Umm, no. Are they better on defense? Umm, no. Are they better in the win/loss column? Umm, no.

All of this said, I think you are the one who needs to take off the blinders.

Hope springs eternal. That's the only way anyone could say that we're better.

Just ask them for stats. Of course the patented answer will be that the only stat that matters is wins, but then when you throw out that the number of wins over the past two seasons of the Donadope era are equal to the number of wins in the first two seasons of the formerly Levy era, they'll come up with all kinds of other nonsubstantive reasons to validate their hopes otherwise.

Only a blind man or someone with incredible bias could possibly say that this team is actually better off now. It may be equal, but that's about the most favorable thing one can say and that's entirely pending next season. There won't be many reasons for high expectations next year however.

[Wys Guy]

Re: BILLS BETTER THAN BEFORE LEVY

I think the Bills have much better character players and got rid of a lot of the cancers on the team.

Many say that, but "character" is not "good" in terms of performance on the field.

BTW, it is possible to get "character" and "talent" simultaneously. Every time someone throws this out it seems as if the Bills are the only team in the 32-team league that has "character" and stands on principles.

Most of the players don't have character issues. These things only rise to the top on teams that suck.