Can old pro Levy bring the Bills back to the future?

[G. Host]

There is a belief in Buffalo that many fine candidates for the GM job were passed over to bring in an octogenarian who badly wanted to get back into the game he walked away from in 1998. That may be true, but the fact is Levy’s final team finished 10-6 and lost an AFC wild-card playoff game to Miami on the road, 24-17.

Yep. We know this far too well.

The Bills have been in the playoffs once since, and that was the following season with essentially the same team Levy left behind. It’s been downhill ever since, despite the hiring of smart, energetic, young football men like Wade Phillips, Williams, Donahoe, Modrak and Mularkey, so why not try hiring a smart, old football man with a proven record of not only getting into the playoffs but winning once he got there?


Better the sharp old fox who has survived rather than the ones who barely avoid being eaten by the hounds.

Maybe it won’t work. Maybe it’s a last-gasp effort by an aging owner trying to relive the past rather than build for the future. But then again, what does Wilson have to lose? Football games? He’s lived through six years of that for following the conventional wisdom. Many of his critics in Buffalo the past month were praising his hiring of Donahoe five years ago. They were hailing the trade for Bledsoe when it happened and the arrival of Williams, who is once again a hot coaching commodity after doing a brilliant job with the Redskins’ defense the past two years.

The higher the stake, the larger the potential profit.

http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFL/AFC/AFC+East/Buffalo/Features/2006/borges2027.htm

[ublinkwescore]

I thought Levy's last game was against the Jags - Jim Kelly retired soon after...

[The_Philster]

I thought Levy's last game was against the Jags - Jim Kelly retired soon after...
Kelly retired after that Jags game...about a month after Kent Hull
Marv Levy and Steve Tasker were around another year

[feelthepain]

Anythings Possible, but it won't be easy. I think it'll take a minor miracle to happen this year or even next.

[ublinkwescore]

How did I know that Feelthepenis would chime in here?

[cordog]

Who ever wrote that article doesnt know what the hell he is talking about and needs to get his facts straight. Levy's last year was 1997. Buffalo finished 6-10 and obviously didnt make the playoffs. Wade Phillips coached the 1998 team that went 10-6 and lost in Miami.

[feelthepain]

How did I know that Feelthepenis would chime in here?

At least I got one!!!

[G. Host]

Who ever wrote that article doesnt know what the hell he is talking about and needs to get his facts straight. Levy's last year was 1997. Buffalo finished 6-10 and obviously didnt make the playoffs. Wade Phillips coached the 1998 team that went 10-6 and lost in Miami.

Read the whole article. He said that it was mostly a team which Levy built which is true. Similiar to Cowpokes team which won 3rd Superbowl in 90's. Wade did not change all of the game plans and served as DC for Marv.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

I totally agree with the premise of the article. There is no guarantee that it will work (there are no guarantees in life other than death and taxes!), but it was definitely worth it for R.Wilson to take the gamble.

I would even go further to say that, given the state of the team at the end of last season, it may be the one move that RW could have made that might have a chance to succeed in the near future. Like Joe Gibbs, Marv Levy brings an instant credibility to his decisions: he's in the HOF and he's close to the owner--who can argue with him if they don't like a decision that he or his hand-picked people make and expect to win the argument? Other than Ron Wolf, who has adamantly stuck by his statement that he is not interested in being a GM again, who else could the Bills have hired as their GM with that kind of clout? Having gotten away with hating and questioning the previous GM, what would have prevented any of the Bills' players from similarly questioning a new, younger, less credentialled GM? Nothing. But, it is going to be hard for anyone in the Bills' lockerroom to question Marv's decisions....

When you look around the NFL, what do you see? A lot of teams trying to copy the Bill Walsh or Parcells/Belichick blueprint for success. While Belichick and, to a lesser extent, John Fox have been successful with their own versions of the Parcells blue-print, following such a blueprint is no guarantee of success: the Bills just spent 5 years trying to copy the Noll/Cowher blueprint and failed--even Parcells has not been that successful following his own blueprint in Dallas. Marv Levy doesn't have to copy someone else's blueprint, he has his own. And, while Marv has made more than a few adjustments to his own blueprint along the way, his blueprint is just as much based on sound coaching systems, Bud Wilkinson's and George Allen's, as the Parcells/Belichick blueprint or the Walsh blueprint (hey, Marv Levy gave Walsh his first college coaching job!). So, what could someone who the Bills might have hired from somewhere else around the league bring to the team that would be that much better than what Marv brings? Experience as a GM, OK, but knowledge of the game and what kind of players and coaches a team needs to be successful, hardly.

Now, Marv may or may not succeed in building the Bills back up to be a championship caliber team, but it won't be because he doesn't know what kind of players and coaches a team needs to have to be successful. Indeed, Marv may have a better chance of being successful sooner than anyone else that the Bills may have hired to be their GM: a GM brought in from elsewhere would look at what happened last season and want to gut the team and rebuild it from scratch with his own coaching staff and, most importantly, players; while Marv is looking to build the team back up around some of the players the team already has and to make the team as successful as possible as he is tweaking the roster and replacing those players who the coaches and his experience tell him are not going to get the team where he wants it to go. It's a riskier strategy than a complete rebuilding, but, like Parcells and Gibbs, Levy has that HOF credibility that will force his players to give his system a chance and, at the same time, give him a chance to weed out anyone who doesn't fully buy into it without having to completely rebuild the roster from scratch.

While there is no guarantee that Marv will ultimately succeed in turning the Bills into a serious Super Bowl contender, for an owner who knows that he doesn't have that much time left in his life, with a team in as much disarray as the Bills were in, hiring Marv Levy to try to turn the team around was not nearly as much of a risk as it might seem. In an era when there are more and more healthy, energetic octogenarians living active lives and contributing to their communities than ever before in history, the only real questions are about Marv's age and whether he will be able to stay fit, active and healthy long enough to accomplish the task he has undertaken. But, for those who are concerned about Marv's age, I would simply point out that age is no guarantee of longevity: a man in his 50s or 60s can have a heart attack or stroke and die just as easily as a man in his 80s. So, why not give a man with the kind of knowledge and experience that Marv has a chance to do the job? He has at least as good, if not a better chance of being successful at it as some young mid-40s or 50-ish whippersnapper who has spent all of his life in a front office job!

[Spiderweb]

At this point, Marv should be here right now just to help shore up the mess TD created, get us thru FA and the draft (hopefully a bit more successfully than we were of late), get coaches under contract that both are solid and lastly to guide the transition to the next GM. A year or two (no more than 3) should be all Marv serves the Bills.

Yet, if he can go a bit longer (if successful), all the more power to him and the Bills.

[Billsrock4life]

At this point, Marv should be here right now just to help shore up the mess TD created, get us thru FA and the draft (hopefully a bit more successfully than we were of late), get coaches under contract that both are solid and lastly to guide the transition to the next GM. A year or two (no more than 3) should be all Marv serves the Bills.

Yet, if he can go a bit longer (if successful), all the more power to him and the Bills.

exactly... i dont know if Levy is gonna bring the bills back to the team they once were but i do know he is gonna make better decisions then TD as GM

[Drive 4 Five]

How did I know that Feelthepenis would chime in here?

:rofl:

"Feel The Penis" That's great stuff.

On another note, you and I have a score to settle. Not that you care but I do want to apologize for sending you a foul message when I thought you had negged me numerous times for basically telling a dolphin fan to piss off.

Turns out it was someone else (three someone elses) negging me and then pretending to be you. So. Once again. I apologize.

[Drive 4 Five]

There is a belief in Buffalo that many fine candidates for the GM job were passed over to bring in an octogenarian who badly wanted to get back into the game he walked away from in 1998.

What fine candidates I wonder? Seems to me like the only other fine candidate out there was Ron Wolfe and I don't know if he was actually ever a candidate since he isn't working for anybody. Right?