Don't Drink the Damned Kool-Aid!

by Ron Baskin

Okay, it’s time to remove the kid gloves. The 2006 Buffalo Bills are going to be terrible. There, I’ve said what everybody has been thinking. From top to bottom this is an organization in absolute chaos. The Bush administration has a better plan for getting out of Iraq than the Wilson administration has for building a winning football team.

Any rookie who signs a long-term contract with this team is a fool. I don’t care how much money they give him. He’s a fool if he signs a long-term deal. It would be better to take a three-year deal and get out of town as soon as possible. General Manager Marv Levy won’t be there seven years from now. Nor will head coach Dick Jauron. Unless the team is sold you can count on the hiring of another incompetent duo to run the franchise.

Any fan who supports this team financially on blind faith is also foolish. The Bills have taken your hard-earned dollars and have yet to keep their word and put a competitive team on the field. Why shouldn’t they? They’re getting away with it. You can’t voluntarily drink the damned Kool-Aid and claim you were forced to do it. Why? Because you don’t want the Bills to leave town? Heck, more than a million people have fled the area since 1975. Why shouldn’t the Bills follow the Braves (now the L.A. Clippers) to greener pastures?

All Fingers Point to A Front Office in Extremis

Fans virtually danced in the streets when owner Ralph Wilson fired General Manager Tom Donahoe in January. We warned you then that the firing wouldn’t count unless assistant GM Tom Modrak and Pro Personnel director John Guy were shown the door at the same time. Modrak was living off his past reputation in Philadelphia. Donahoe had lived off his early accomplishments in Pittsburgh. Neither did a damned thing for the Buffalo Bills. Guy is simply a guy in over his head.

So, the first thing Wilson does is name Marv Levy General Manager. There were several reasons for this, and I’m not buying that "trusted adviser" crap. Levy is held in reverence in Buffalo for guiding the Bills to four consecutive (and disastrous) Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s. He was earning a living as a broadcast analyst for the Chicago Bears when Wilson reached out to him in sheer desperation.

Now, it should be pointed out that Ralph Wilson lives in Detroit, where another broadcaster was appointed General Manager of the Lions. Matt Millen had nothing in his resume to suggest he would be a successful GM and neither does Marv Levy. So what if Levy is a Hall of Fame coach. That’s not the job he was brought back to Buffalo to do.

Anybody who ever cared a wit, for the Buffalo Bills knew the broom had to sweep the front office clean for there to be a chance of producing a legitimate contender in three years. So, Wilson announces Modrak is going to stay (he’ll spend more time in Buffalo, like that’s going to make him any smarter) and so will John Guy. Hey, said Ralph, even coach Mike Mularkey gets a reprieve. Suddenly, we had the same organization with a different head. An 80-year-old head.

Now, we must take note of the fact that Ralph Wilson is notoriously tight-fisted. The day after he fired Gregg Williams as head coach, Redskins owner Dan Snyder dispatched Hall of Fame head coach Joe Gibbs (whose team beat the hell out of the Bills in SBXXVI) to hire Williams as offensive coordinator—at twice the money Wilson was paying him! You’d better believe an experienced General Manager would have demanded more money—and more power—than Wilson was comfortable forking over.

So, what Wilson thought he was getting was a rekindled public interest in the team for a bargain basement price. Levy’s hiring generated all kinds of excitement. You’d have thought it was the Second Coming. The newspapers and airwaves were full of conjecture that Marv would ride in and everything would be alright. There was a better chance of Bill Clinton winning an award for being a faithful husband.

Seems the general public, and Levy himself, harbored hope the old coach would get to prowl the sidelines again. Perhaps he would hold both titles. Maybe he would give up the front office gig to return to the sidelines which, after all, is his first love. In a perfect world Marv was going to buy the groceries and cook the meals.

But Ralph Wilson had different ideas, especially when Mularkey surveyed the landscape and decided he wanted no part of the predictable chaos to ensue. Mularkey shocked Wilson and Levy by suddenly resigning. Wilson breathed a huge sigh of relief. Why? Because Mularkey had three years left on his contract and, as Wilson discovered during his messy parting with Wade Phillips, the owner would be on the hook for the balance if Mularkey were fired. So he created a situation he knew Mularkey couldn’t live with and it worked.

In his two seasons with the Bills, Mularkey learned just how meddlesome Wilson could be. He’d get calls from the owner at the most inopportune times. It didn’t matter whether he was at practice, watching film or working on a game plan; the phone would ring and Wilson would be on the other end. Mularkey didn’t have to take all the calls because Donahoe inserted himself as a buffer.

Mularkey also knew he was performing a high wire act when he suspended receiver Eric Moulds for insubordination. It should have been the coach’s decision to make, and it certainly should have gone no higher than Donahoe. But, suddenly, Moulds couldn’t be suspended until Wilson could meet with the disgruntled receiver. You feeling me here?

Mularkey knew full well that Levy was capable of conniving his way onto the sidelines by waiting for him to falter. If the team wasn’t doing well by, say, the fourth or fifth game of the season, Mularkey would be fired and Levy would step in to fill the void. The perfect setup. Levy may have an Ivy League degree, but Mularkey is no dope.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Mularkey ended up signing on as offensive coordinator of the Dolphins. For a lot more money.

Exposed, Levy Falters

You know that old saying about the best-laid plans of mice and men? Levy discovered its value firsthand when Mularkey sang "Bye, Bye Birdie" on his way out the door. The Buffalo PR machine immediately leaked word that Mularkey couldn’t take the heat from the fans, especially when his kids were accosted at school. It didn’t make sense then. It doesn’t make sense now, except for one thing. It was the perfect (so they thought) setup for Levy to move to the sidelines.

In announcing Mularkey’s departure, Levy left the door open to a return to the sidelines when queried by reporters. Oh, there’d be a search for a new headman to be sure. But, in the end, everyone knew the most suitable candidate—at least from a PR standpoint—was already in house. And everyone knew that man’s name was Marv Levy.

Wilson quickly shot down that notion and sent Marv out to tell the media gathering he would not be assuming sideline duties. Had Mularkey stayed on, Levy almost assuredly would have succeeded him as head coach in the middle of the season, if for no other reason than to keep the fans coming through the turnstiles. Mularkey beat the old guy to the punch (young guys usually do) and, as a result, gave Wilson the breathing room he needed to cut Levy off at the knees.

Why, you ask, is Ralph against letting his most successful coach do an encore? It’s a matter of power and control. Levy almost immediately regretted his 1997 retirement and has sought several NFL coaching opportunities since. But a returning Levy would have been a more powerful coaching presence than he was during his first tour of duty. It would be extremely difficult to fire the old guy, even if he faltered on the sidelines. Under no circumstances would Levy hold both titles, and Ralph had already decided which hat suited the owner’s purpose.

Even if Levy had no intention of undermining Mularkey that was bound to be the end result of their relationship. Mularkey had shown a disturbing lack of resolve in the head coaching role. If he truly believed J.P. Losman, as a first-year starter, could take the team farther than the veteran Drew Bledsoe, he didn’t understand the nature of the position of quarterback. Tom Donahoe may have believed it. No head coach should have.

If Mularkey continued to waver he would be on his way out. Standing on the gallows, he decided to pull the lever himself to open the trap door.

The Ivy League Connection

So, Levy unexpectedly found himself in need of a head coach. Would he look for a proven winner? No way. He would find someone with experience, but not someone who appeared to be on the verge of becoming the next Bill Parcells.

Given the fact that Wilson’s coaches have always been among the lowest paid in the league there was little chance the Bills would hire a candidate who had actually been successful. In fact, nobody familiar with the Bills and the NFL ever thought a prime candidate would be hired, even though one had suddenly become available.

In a fit of insanity, the Green Bay Packers fired head coach Mike Sherman around the time Donahoe was shoved overboard by the Bills. Sherman had also been a general manager, which seemingly would have made him an ideal fit for the Bills. Not only could he coach, Sherman could also help neophyte Wilson navigate some of the nuances of being a GM. The only problem was Sherman would command—and demand—the going rate for an NFL head coach, which Wilson would never agree to.

Besides, Levy had some experience with hiring an obvious successor, then being shoved out the door—in his mind—prematurely. There wouldn’t be another Wade Phillips in Marv Levy’s future, even though that might be best for the team. Levy probably would have preferred a coordinator for a promotion, but Tom Donahoe went that route with both Williams and Mularkey. If Marv followed the same path Baghdad would have been safer than One Bills Drive.

Levy, however, did have an ace up his sleeve from his Chicago broadcasting days. He reached out to former Bears head coach Dick Jauron. A fellow Ivy Leaguer, Jauron actually did have one successful season coaching the team before imploding. He was both competent and non-threatening. Levy had hit the daily double. He knew selling Jauron to Wilson would be no problem since Jauron wasn’t positioned to demand a king’s ransom.

Clearing the Roster

Prior to the draft the team made few free agent acquisitions that made sense, in part because Jauron and his staff decided to change the defensive scheme to the Tampa-2. Absolutely nothing was done to improve the offense, particularly the line, which seemed strange because new offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild is a disciple of Mike Martz.

The big free agent signing during the period before the draft was defensive tackle Larry Triplett from the Lions. Triplett is a smallish tackle who excels (I’m using that word very loosely) in the one-gap system. His acquisition heralded the Tampa-2, which relies on speed and penetration. He’s not a run-stopper, which was Buffalo’s weakness in 2005. He also can’t be counted on to keep offensive linemen off under-sized middle linebacker London Fletcher.

Most of the acquisitions made in free agency were for purposes of providing depth. Few of the players will actually make an impact in 2006 or beyond, barring a disaster of major proportions.

One thing the Levy administration did get right was the release of offensive tackle Mike Williams. You have to think a new line coach may have been tempted by Williams’ sheer size to see whether he could have done a better job than Jim McNally in developing the former first round draft choice. Sadly, Williams is one of those players who got a big paycheck, which is probably all he was after in the first place. It is, however, wrong to fault Donahoe for making the pick. At the time the ex-Longhorn was drafted observers, including myself, thought the Bills had a talent who would anchor their line for years.

Another good decision was trading Eric Moulds. If Donovan McNabb was pushed under a bus by Terrell Owens, J.P. Losman was thrown into a jet engine by Moulds and Lawyer Milloy. To make matters worse, when Mularkey benched Losman, Moulds would later show his gratitude by removing himself from a game, leading to a suspension.

Levy, who was the head coach when the Bills drafted Moulds, initially wanted to keep the aging receiver. It soon became clear, however, that Moulds would be a cancer in the locker-room and Buffalo would be better off shipping him elsewhere for whatever they could get for him.

The Draft—Lookin’ For Love in All the Wrong Places

Let’s make one thing clear from the outset. In terms of talent, Levy and company had a fine draft. Most of the players selected will be contributors for at least three seasons (after which time they are likely to find greener pastures in free agency). But the picks didn’t fill major needs for the Bills. In fact, the team emerged from the draft with the same holes they had going in.

The only question in the minds of most draft watchers (and that includes other General Managers around the league) was, which of the two premier defensive tackles available would the Bills select? Not since Sherman’s march to the sea had defensive lines crumbled the way Buffalo’s had in 2005. Both Oregon’s Haloti Ngata and Florida State’s Brodrick Bunkley were available when the Bills selected eighth in the first round. Ngata was the better run stuffer, but Bunkley would probably be a better fit in the team’s new Tampa-2 scheme.

Levy and Jauron instead picked Ohio State strong safety Donte Whitner. The Bills maintain Whitner was the player they wanted all along, though—truth be told—it’s difficult to imagine Whitner was higher on their board than Michael Huff, the safety everyone coveted. Huff, however, had been picked by the Raiders just before the Bills’ turn and Levy, Jauron and Modrak simply panicked.

Even if you take their word that Whitner was the player they wanted, what does that say about the judgment of a team that had greater needs? While Whitner was a second round pick on most boards, if the Bills really wanted him they were probably correct in taking him.

Bottom line is an experienced GM would have engineered trades to get more picks, Levy got less. There was certainly no need to reach for DT John McCargo. Ashton Youboty and Ko Simpson could be considered steals. But there is virtually no help that’s really needed.

The Hunt for the Quarterback of the Future

Levy & Company early on decided J.P. Losman is not the answer the Buffalo Bills need at the quarterback position. They also had no use for Kelly Holcomb, the journeyman some believe has earned the starting position.

So, they went out and signed Green Bay backup Craig Nall and announced there would be a three-way competition for the job. More than a few eyebrows were raised by the decision. They would rise even further following the draft.

Losman’s problems stemmed from the ill-fated decision of Donahoe and Mularkey to anoint him the starter following the 2004 campaign over veteran Drew Bledsoe. Losman had thrown just five passes during his rookie campaign (thanks, in part, to missing 10 games after breaking his leg in training camp).

The general manager and coach believed Bledsoe was too immobile to function efficiently behind what they called an offensive line. It didn’t help that in the final game of the season Bledsoe, during the coin toss, had gone against the direction of Mularkey and had the team defending the wrong end zone. Had Buffalo won the game, against the Pittsburgh Steeler backups, the Bills would have gone to the playoffs. They didn’t, opting instead for early tee times.

Bledsoe was told he could compete for the job, though Losman would enter training camp as the starter. Bledsoe informed them he had no intention of being a backup to anybody, "especially J.P.," who had managed to alienate a few veteran members of the team. The Bills then honored Bledsoe’s request to be released and, to the surprise of nobody, he reunited with Bill Parcells in Dallas.

Donahoe and Mularkey had made a fatal miscalculation that would end up costing them their jobs. The Bills finished the 2004 campaign 9-7, missing the playoffs by one game. Many will argue the Pittsburgh game cost them the berth. Actually, when you miss by one game, any game you lose is the one that cost you. But the game that really cost them was the first game against Jacksonville. A game that was already in the bag until a defensive blunder by Nate Clements allowed the Jaguars to score the winning touchdown with no time on the clock.

Finishing 9-7 had emboldened the Bills’ braintrust, which announced they did not believe Bledsoe could lead the team to "the next level," meaning the playoffs. You’re always kind of stupid when you suggest an untried player can do something a veteran can’t. The weight of the world was placed on the shoulders of Losman and he collapsed under the pressure.

To be fair, Losman did everything he could to make his debut as a starter a success, staying in Western New York nearly the entire off-season to work with quarterback coach Sam Wyche. Wyche, the man who once compared Bledsoe favorably with Joe Montana and Boomer Esiason, spent long hours preparing Losman. In the end, it probably proved to be too many hours.

It wasn’t difficult to see how wired Losman was, He was having difficulty controlling his excitement during public appearances. Where the team needed a steady hand to guide it, Losman was acting more like a member of the WWE Spirit Squad.

J.P. was, in effect, a rookie. Even the most die-hard fans expected him to falter at some point in the season. Most resigned themselves to the fact there would be some ups and downs. But Donahoe and Mularkey had promised the playoffs and as soon as Losman faltered they turned to Holcomb.

Kelly Holcomb has been a journeyman his entire NFL career. He has always been an adequate backup, though he lacks the arm and athleticism to be a franchise quarterback. Statistically, he was not much better than Losman. The young quarterback was rubbing some veterans the wrong way. Holcomb provided the quiet, steady leadership players like Moulds and Milloy were looking for.

All you need to know about Craig Nall is this: With Brett Favre on the verge of retirement, rather than turn to Nall, Packers coach Ray Sherman drafted Aaron Rodgers in 2005. Sherman is one of the most respected coaches/personnel men in the league. With a quarterback who could retire at any moment, if Nall were a franchise player Sherman would have locked him up long term.

The Bills will tell you some pretty good quarterbacks come out of the Green Bay system. The fact is Green Bay has picked up some good ones, but they don’t let many go. Matt Hasselback managed to escape because they weren’t likely to play him in the immediate future and they got a king’s ransom from former coach Mike Holmgren, who had moved on to Seattle.

Bills Go Boll Weevil – Looking For A Home

As though the chaos in the front office wasn’t enough, the league entered into a new collective bargaining agreement with the players union. Not only did it give the players a bigger piece of the revenue pie, it also changed the way small-market teams receive additional revenues to make them competitive.

Ralph Wilson didn’t like the structure of the deal, nor rumors he head about the new revenue sharing formula to be worked out by a committee of owners. Fearing he would be left off that panel, Wilson launched a PR offensive to guarantee himself a seat.

First—as he always does when things don’t seem to be going his way—Wilson raised the specter the team would be unable to compete and, therefore, would have to leave Buffalo. That, in turn, raised the hackles of local political leaders and panicked the area’s football fans.

First on board the Wilson bandwagon was Sen. Charles (Chucky Cheese) Schumer (D-NY) who never saw a camera he didn’t like. He fired off a letter to Commissioner Paul Tagliabue expressing concern New York state was about to lose its only football franchise (the Jets and Giants play in neighboring New Jersey). Wilson then recruited Buffalo native Tim Russert, moderator of NBC’s "Meet The Press."

Schumer and Russert met with the commissioner, who promised the league would do everything in its power to keep the Bills in Western New York. To that end, the commissioner announced, Wilson would have a seat on the panel hammering out details of the new revenue sharing deal.

Ralph again had won the day. Western New York could breathe a sigh of relief. The Bills are safe. Well, at least until the next crisis. As long as jobs and people continue to flee the area the Bills will be in trouble. Wilson knows that. So do his heirs. Ralph will keep his legacy intact, but that won’t be binding on his heirs or anyone else who buys the team.

Can the Bills Be Winners Soon?

Emphatically, I say, no! Each time you rebuild a team it takes at least three seasons before it becomes a legitimate contender. Each time you make front office changes at the top you begin another rebuilding process.

Marv Levy and Tom Modrak have done nothing to make the Bills stronger. They already had a corps of defensive backs, who—by the way—are a dime a dozen in every draft. In the areas where the team really needed an upgrade the gruesome twosome did nothing.

If Levy suddenly awakes from hibernation this season you’ll still be three seasons away from contention.

By the way, are you traveling first class aboard the Titanic?