what "character" guys is marv yapping about?

[sfladave]

The one word I think everyone is missing here is "maturity." You find good players that are professionally mature, you're chances of success increase. Maturity means being accountable and responsible for yourself, your teammates and your coaches.

 

By the way....... the Bills teams of the 90s won exactly zero championships, so let's not say they "won" or were "winners." Maturity also means going to the Super Bowl to win it, not party and drink your face off.

613332[/snapback]

Considering they had one of the best records in the 90s, if not the best, I think it would be safe to call them winners! Super Bowl victory or not!

 

edit: As far as character players I think Marv wanted guys who would play their hearts out on the field during games. Training camp and practices were not where Marv demanded heart (ie.Bruce Smith). Like Jimmy Johnson's separate rules for the Troys and Emmitts, so too, does Marv follow the same rulebook.

[Mickey]

Marv won with high character teams...character is not just off the field, but the lunch pail mentality of the Bills of the 90's.  Marv will bring that back, and we will win....you just wait and see.

612605[/snapback]

Lunch pail my foot. We had plenty of highly paid show boats and prima donnas. Bruce, Andre, Thurman, Talley, Odoms, Biscuit, Kelly, they could all be real jerks when the mood struck them. Apart from that though, they could all flat out play. Even more, they were miserable #%#$%'s when it came to losing. They hated, hated, hated, hated, hated losing. That is what we need, guys who, as much as they love the money, love winning more. Guys who get foaming at the mouth mean and nasty at the idea of losing a game. Guys who care. Polar opposites of Mike Williams.

 

That is, I think, what Marv means by "character". He isn't talking about nice guys who won't steal your wallet out of your locker and never miss mass. He is talking about guys with grit. Players who take the game and winning very seriously.

[5 Wide]

I totally agree that Marv will bring back character and loyalty to the Bills. High character players are those that play for eachother, for the W, and for the City. The combine freaks and "pure athletes" that Donahoe coveted played for the dollar and for Sportscenter. I'm not naive enough to say that money and exposure doesn't matter, just that for the players you need to build around, winning comes first. Say what you want about Kelly's hot rod attitude when he came here but he would be the first one into a burning building to pull a teammate out. Thats the character you want. Look at the sabres.

[BillsPride12]

Football characer isn't about being a Saint off the field. If that were the case then I think we already have a pretty high character football team. Football character is all about going out and playing your ass off every single play. I remember Darryl Talley once saying, "When I played football I brought my lunch pail to work because I was gonna be there all day whether you like it or not. I'm not going to run and I'm not going to hide I'm going to stand there and go toe to toe with whoever they bring out" That's football character. Against Atlanta when Jim Kelly threw an interception he ran the guy down and broke his leg. That's football character. When the Bills were getting killed in the first half against Houston, they came out in the 2nd half and played probably the single best half of football ever. Thats football character. Scoring 3 td's in 77 seconds is football character. We NEED these kind of guys on our team, right now I only see that competiveness in a couple guys(Spikes,McGee,some of our special teamers, and a couple others). Look at the Steelers team that just won the Super Bowl. Guys like Porter,Polamalu,Bettis, even Big Ben cared alot more about winning than just getting paid. If I was Marv I would really do whatever I could to get Bentley in Buffalo and then take Mangold in the 2nd. Those two guys alone would bring alot of nastiness to our o-line.