who did us worse, TDonohue or Marv 2nd incarnation?

[Lurker]

Your grade of Clements is unfair. If he was good, he was good, no matter how long he stayed with the team. TD certainly was not the one to let him go either...

 

Lee Evans deserves an A and Lynch a B+.

That would be my read as well.

 

To mark down ML on an assumption of his career longevity is a large skew against the curve, as Dean suggests.

[folz]

For those old enough to remember the Bills Superbowl years well, that team was not just a great football

team but they had a bond with the fans and the community...they weren't just doing it for themselves

but for us fans as well. There was camaraderie between the players on the team and between the

players, coaches, organization, and fans. Its what made that time special and why we love the Bills

so much...that blue collar all for one and one for all attitude...

 

Donahoe had just lost a power struggle in Pittsburgh and then gained full control in Buffalo. He dismantled

a team he could have built on giving us 2-3 years of total rebuilding. He struck out on his coaching choices

not because Ralph was cheap but because he was going to be damned if he was going to let another coach

usurp his power (so he wasn't going to bring in a big name). And as things started going bad he became more

paranoid and developed a bunker mentality to the point of being beligerent in press conferences and then

confiscating fan's signs and having fans ejected from the stadium. I never felt lower about the Bills than

Donahoe's last year. In the atrocious mid 80s fans wore bags over their heads with derogatory comments

about Ralph, but they were never tossed from a game or had to give up those bags.

 

Levy was brought in to bring the fans back, to give us a better feeling about the team, to feel like we were

apart of the team again and not that the team was against us and in that I think he was completely successful.

 

Sure if you're just looking at football moves you could probably make a case for either of them being worse

than the other (even though I would still give the edge to Marv being better...lets see what Trent, Lynch, Poz,

Whitner, and Jauron do this year) and sure Jauron isn't the best coach in the league but if you can't see

how much better he is than Greggo and Mularkey (no nickname needed) than you're just crazy. But if you're

looking at the jobs they were brought in to do, Donahoe was a major failure on all counts while Marv (even if

you think he did bad in the talent aspect) did accomplish his main job.

[Orton's Arm]

Your grade of Clements is unfair. If he was good, he was good, no matter how long he stayed with the team. TD certainly was not the one to let him go either...

 

Lee Evans deserves an A and Lynch a B+.

Clements' contract expired while TD was the GM. Moreover, TD was the GM who let Antoine Winfield go first contract and out; indicating he wasn't willing to pay top dollar to retain his own first rate CBs. That being the case, he knew that if Clements did well, it would be another first contract and out situation. When a GM uses a first round pick on a CB--and then lets that CB go first contract and out--he doesn't deserve the same grade he would have received if he'd obtained a long-term building block.

 

At least that's my take on it. Others might feel that obtaining a first contract and out player (such as Clements) deserves just as much credit as obtaining a long-term building block (such as Ruben Brown).

 

Lee Evans was drafted 13th overall. He hasn't exceeded the expectations one typically associates with a WR taken at that early point in the draft--at least not in my view. Had he been taken in the 20s, I would have given him an A.

 

Lynch was taken 12th overall; and a pick like that is associated with high expectations. Bills' starting RBs have traditionally had short careers here: Willis McGahee, Travis Henry, Antowain Smith. The last time we had a starting RB with longevity was Thurman Thomas; and Lynch is a lot worse than Thomas at avoiding the hard hits. If he's still playing at or near this level in his tenth season, I'll admit that I should have given him a B rather than a C.

[ExiledInIllinois]

good point VJ91 about Polian - i'm not sure how much of Marv's success came due to Polian's wisdom in the background, but one would hazard a guess that it was a significant factor. look at what Polian did in Indy as well, that man is a genius and we should never have parted ways with him!

 

Polian got to start with a bad Bills team and a bad Colts team... I not saying Polian is not good... But, the test for me will be to see how the Colts do when they hit mediocrity and past the Manning years.

 

Sometimes mediocrity is one's worst enemy... It is easier IMO to go from VERY bad to VERY good... But, from mediocre to very good is harder IMO. Once a team gets mired... It is hard to get out of that mediocity.

[DrDawkinstein]

letting pat williams walk is unforgivable. couple that with no real plan on how to build a team, and the entire Donahoe era was a complete waste that set the team back a decade. yeah, he found some talent with some draft picks, but he never knew how to work the draft to build a team. throw in the fact that hiring mularkey lead to the loss of rusty jones...

 

i dont know, i dont have many positive memories from the Donahoe era. so far, i like the direction the team has taken since Marv stepped in and got the train back on the tracks. Levy may not have completed his plan to perfection, but at least he's given the FO a blueprint to follow.

[Tsaikotic]

letting pat williams walk is unforgivable. couple that with no real plan on how to build a team, and the entire Donahoe era was a complete waste that set the team back a decade. yeah, he found some talent with some draft picks, but he never knew how to work the draft to build a team. throw in the fact that hiring mularkey lead to the loss of rusty jones...

i dont know, i dont have many positive memories from the Donahoe era. so far, i like the direction the team has taken since Marv stepped in and got the train back on the tracks. Levy may not have completed his plan to perfection, but at least he's given the FO a blueprint to follow.

 

I honestly feel this move hurt the BIlls a lot...I seem to recall the year or 2 after Jones was gone that the players seemed to always be getting hurt or pulling something

[The Dean]

letting pat williams walk is unforgivable. couple that with no real plan on how to build a team, and the entire Donahoe era was a complete waste that set the team back a decade. yeah, he found some talent with some draft picks, but he never knew how to work the draft to build a team. throw in the fact that hiring mularkey lead to the loss of rusty jones...

 

i dont know, i dont have many positive memories from the Donahoe era. so far, i like the direction the team has taken since Marv stepped in and got the train back on the tracks. Levy may not have completed his plan to perfection, but at least he's given the FO a blueprint to follow.

 

 

Right on the money, Dr. D. Marv's biggest mistake was, in retrospect, hiring Jauron. But I can understand why he might have thought Dick was a good choice for the team, at the time.

[ChasBB]

... How about those Bills Special Teams? Moorman, Lindell, McGee, and Parrish all Donahoe finds...

I don't see Lindell as a positive in the Donahoe score column. He's got a weak leg relative to other kickers in the league. He's not a guy you want out there to nail a critical 55-yard field goal. True, not many kickers can consistently be depended upon to make a kick like that, but with Lindell, the option is not even on the table. Also, while generally consistent, he has missed at least a couple of huge (and very makable) kicks which have literally been season-busters. If Lindell is not on the roster opening day, I for one will be glad about that.

[Tcali]

Donahoe hired two bad coaches and swung and missed three times on the QB position (keeping Johnson, Bledsoe, Losman). I don't know if he was worse than Levy, but he certainly was bad.

0 for 3...but Bledsoe at least temporarily put some life into the franchise.

[DrDawkinstein]

0 for 3...but Bledsoe at least temporarily put some life into the franchise.

 

oh yeah, the new uniforms. another shite move of that era.

[Thurman#1]

The hiring of Jauron essentially means that Marv was responsible for roughly the same amount of losing seasons as TD.

 

Hard to believe, but there it is.

 

Draft wise, TD was not good, Mike Williams et al. But did Marv do better? An over-rated Whitner, a couple of busts, a few diamonds in the rough. Not great though.

 

Maybe it is equal in futility, Marv and TD?

 

 

 

Donohoe got us out of salary cap hell, was mediocre in player acquisition but ignored the lines (his biggest sin) and hired two horrible coaches.

 

Marv's player acquisitions are still too recent to be fully judged till after this year, but appear to be somewhere between decent and excellent (if Trent becomes a franchise QB and Marshawn stays out of trouble). His coaching hires are also too early to judge, but it will all become obvious by the end of this year.

 

Final tally: Marv was either somewhat better or much much better.

[Bill from NYC]

Levy may not have completed his plan to perfection, but at least he's given the FO a blueprint to follow.

 

If you don't mind, please explain what exactly that blueprint is in tems of building a winning team because I just can't see it. Moreover, if Brandon is at some point successful, imo it will be primarily despite the setbacks caused directly by Levy.

That said, the 07 draft might turn out to be a very good one, unlike the disaster of 06.

[OCinBuffalo]

If you don't mind, please explain what exactly that blueprint is in tems of building a winning team because I just can't see it. Moreover, if Brandon is at some point successful, imo it will be primarily despite the setbacks caused directly by Levy.

That said, the 07 draft might turn out to be a very good one, unlike the disaster of 06.

I see Marv's time as more about cleaning up the mess, than building a winner. When your house collapses, you first have to clean up the rubble before you can start building. Marv had a clear "clean up" plan in the FAs that he signed = Price, Royal, Reyes, Fowler, etc., and some of it might have worked had he gotten help from the QB position. I didn't expect Marv to build a winner, I expected him to do what he did = prevent a complete embarrassment = 0-16.

 

Also, football has changed significantly in the last 5 years. Whether we like it or not, this league is rapidly turning into spread offense/3-4/Cover 2 league, because those are the players that are coming from college. Whitner is not a setback, neither is Youboty, Corner, and definitely not McKelvin. Not when all of them won us games with individual skill plays last year. We know that now.

 

Whether this is the kind of football, or the kind of football player, we like is irrelevant because they just aren't producing them in the quantity you need to build the old school teams. This is especially true of O lineman, and a 3rd+ round O lineman today IS the very type of O lineman you HATE(small, quicker but weaker, not tough, no killer instinct). The only other option is to create a minor league system that produces big guys, because college won't do it anymore.

 

Due to the O situation, defenders that are available to draft are more and more "spread offense defenders". That means a whole lot of CBs, Ss, and undersized LBs who can cover. That's who is available to draft. Everybody after the first 2 rounds is a "undersized, quick, high motor, good football smarts" guy. When everybody is "the same" you might as well take the guy with coverage skills, because you are going to need him.

 

4 WR sets is where things are headed. That means we need at least 2 great and 2 good coverage guys, or teams are going to eat us up on 2-3 second routs, making the pass rush irrelevant. If you can't play defense, and defense wins games, then...what's the point?

[Bill from NYC]

I see Marv's time as more about cleaning up the mess, than building a winner. When your house collapses, you first have to clean up the rubble before you can start building. Marv had a clear "clean up" plan in the FAs that he signed = Price, Royal, Reyes, Fowler, etc., and some of it might have worked had he gotten help from the QB position. I didn't expect Marv to build a winner, I expected him to do what he did = prevent a complete embarrassment = 0-16.

 

Also, football has changed significantly in the last 5 years. Whether we like it or not, this league is rapidly turning into spread offense/3-4/Cover 2 league, because those are the players that are coming from college. Whitner is not a setback, neither is Youboty, Corner, and definitely not McKelvin. Not when all of them won us games with individual skill plays last year. We know that now.

 

Whether this is the kind of football, or the kind of football player, we like is irrelevant because they just aren't producing them in the quantity you need to build the old school teams. This is especially true of O lineman, and a 3rd+ round O lineman today IS the very type of O lineman you HATE(small, quicker but weaker, not tough, no killer instinct). The only other option is to create a minor league system that produces big guys, because college won't do it anymore.

 

Due to the O situation, defenders that are available to draft are more and more "spread offense defenders". That means a whole lot of CBs, Ss, and undersized LBs who can cover. That's who is available to draft. Everybody after the first 2 rounds is a "undersized, quick, high motor, good football smarts" guy. When everybody is "the same" you might as well take the guy with coverage skills, because you are going to need him.

 

4 WR sets is where things are headed. That means we need at least 2 great and 2 good coverage guys, or teams are going to eat us up on 2-3 second routs, making the pass rush irrelevant. If you can't play defense, and defense wins games, then...what's the point?

 

Thank you for an intelligent response/opinion.

 

I do however caution you that it isn't quite that simple. As you point out in the other thread about stats, unseen facts enter into an equation.

When I talk of the Bills playing in the elements, I am not only talking of cold and snow. Several years ag, I was at RWS on Halloween Day. The Bills were playing Arizona, and even Bledsoe was having problems throwing because of rain, and very strong winds. The Bills are also guaranteed a game in the swirling winds of New jersey and Foxboro.

 

My point? The Bills should not be constructed in the same manner as the Atlanta Falcons. They will always need to run, and stop the run. What good is Jason Taylor in his prime when the qb can't throw, and Orlando Pace is steamrolling him? Not much, right?

Levy saw the "collapsed house" about whch you speak. His answer was to spurn trade down offers and draft Donte Whitner, and follow it up with a bad DT (which cost an extra pick), Youboty and Ko Simpson. That wasn't a foundation, it was a sad joke, and the joke was on us fans.

 

The Bills took a huge step in the right direction with Wood and Levitre. I am still in shock to be honest. At some point, they will have to undo the mistakes and neglect inflicted on us at the DT position, and now they need a left tackle. If they can just get rid of the Levy/Jauron mentality of placing the decondary above all else, this team can become a very food one as soon as 2010.

 

Of course, the above is nothing more than my respectful opinion.

[BillsNYC]

I think the one thing ppl keep overlooking that has an impact on all GM's that Buffalo has had, is that Ralph Wilson is the owner...I say this because he most likely had some input on all the decisions that TD and Levy made as GM's...All the coaches hired are decided on by R. Wilson ultimately...When Ralph says he's not going to pay the high prices of great coaches you get the middle of the road to low end coaches left out there...Both TD and Levy found some talent in the drafts and they both found some losers...I give Levy a few more points in his drafting than TD only due to the way TD traded away picks that the Bills needed and for who he traded them for...I don't like some of the players that TD let go, but I wasn't at the meetings and I wasn't privy to the conversations that took place between Bills FO and the players that left/were let go...I was very upset to see Pat Williams and Ted Williams let go...I don't like how Sam Adams was treated in his last year or 2...I didn't like to see Clements go, but I'm glad Bills didn't pay him what he wanted...I wish the Bills would have kept Winfield...All these were moves made by TD...Levy brought in Dockerey, but at the time it was a great move..Our O-lines have sucked for some time and Dockerey was an upgrade for a bit of time...I honestly don't think Levy stayed long enough to really adjust the team, and I think he did ok with never really being a GM b4 or never really wanting to be a GM b4...Levy only really came in to help out Ralph, he never really planned on being a 10 year GM to the team...So far I'm ok with what Brandon has done with Modrak...But if your going to compare the GM's by basing them off there coaching hires, you need to look at Ralph Wilson for that.

 

I think RW was pretty hands off while TD was in charge. Sure he set some guidelines, but I think he pretty much handed the reigns over to TD with the intention of stepping down and enjoying the team as a fan in his twilight. This is evident for two reasons: 1) He handed over the President title 2) When things got REAL bad at the end, Wilson said he wasn't aware of any of it. That's why I think Mort's claims that TD's failure was all RW's fault are bogus.

[DanInSouthBuffalo]

My problem is that Donahoe should have built the lines. It's the same mistake the Bills have made up until this year especially. Losing Pat Williams was HUGE. The 2004 and 2005 drafts were awful (besides Evans).

 

Too many early picks used on the QB and WR position and a #1 used on a running back who couldn't play the year he was drafted.

[The Dean]

I see Marv's time as more about cleaning up the mess, than building a winner. When your house collapses, you first have to clean up the rubble before you can start building. Marv had a clear "clean up" plan in the FAs that he signed = Price, Royal, Reyes, Fowler, etc., and some of it might have worked had he gotten help from the QB position. I didn't expect Marv to build a winner, I expected him to do what he did = prevent a complete embarrassment = 0-16.

 

Context is very important in any evaluation. When you look at what the FO did under Marv you have to consider the state of the team at the time he took over, the willingness of the owner to gamble with large sums of money and the viability of doing a total rebuild that might result in double-digit loss seasons (and what that might do to attendance and eventually, the sustainability of the Bills in Buffalo).

 

The Marv lead FO managed to rebuild the team while actually winning more games than the mess he inherited and the team increased their season-ticket sales at the same time.

 

From the start, I thought Marv's mission was to "right the ship" that had been badly damaged under TD. (BTW, I am not a total TD hater, but the team was in particularly dismal shape when he left, mostly due to his rudderless approach to player acquisition.) I believed Marv would stay 3 (maybe 4) years, and leave with a competitive contender on the field.

 

He left a year earlier than that and while the team may have been more competitive, it was not yet a contender. Not all of the players acquired during his tenure (and since) have been gems, and I can't say Dickie J has been stellar at the helm, but Marv managed to accomplish a big chunk of his mission in just two years and the team has continued down the path set by Marv during those two years.

 

 

I think RW was pretty hands off while TD was in charge. Sure he set some guidelines, but I think he pretty much handed the reigns over to TD with the intention of stepping down and enjoying the team as a fan in his twilight. This is evident for two reasons: 1) He handed over the President title 2) When things got REAL bad at the end, Wilson said he wasn't aware of any of it. That's why I think Mort's claims that TD's failure was all RW's fault are bogus.

 

I would agree that Ralph was probably more hands off during TD's reign than at any other time in the Bills history. One of the things fans need to consider is TD was the "strong GM with experience" they seem to long for. The team approach the team has taken, starting when Marv took the helm, incorporates Ralph's input and probably minimizes his "meddling" as he is involved along the way. This approach may not appeal to the more macho types, but it is far less likely to drive the team totally down the tubes, as TD eventually did.

[OCinBuffalo]

Thank you for an intelligent response/opinion.

I enjoy discussing this issue with one of the few reasonable people on "your" side of the ongoing draft debate as well.

I do however caution you that it isn't quite that simple. As you point out in the other thread about stats, unseen facts enter into an equation.

When I talk of the Bills playing in the elements, I am not only talking of cold and snow. Several years ag, I was at RWS on Halloween Day. The Bills were playing Arizona, and even Bledsoe was having problems throwing because of rain, and very strong winds. The Bills are also guaranteed a game in the swirling winds of New jersey and Foxboro.

Agreed, I would think you would want a team that had tendencies toward playing in colder weather...like a SS from Ohio State, rather than a RB from Miami, for example

 

In all seriousness, I think we all know that Buffalo needs to be a good running team as long as the team is here. The problem is, you can't be when the other team has 0 respect for you passing game. Even if you have HOF lineman(and there are few in the league today compared to the 80s/90s, in terms of pure skill) they are going to stop the run if they know it's coming every play.

My point? The Bills should not be constructed in the same manner as the Atlanta Falcons. They will always need to run, and stop the run. What good is Jason Taylor in his prime when the qb can't throw, and Orlando Pace is steamrolling him? Not much, right?

Agree.

Levy saw the "collapsed house" about whch you speak. His answer was to spurn trade down offers and draft Donte Whitner, and follow it up with a bad DT (which cost an extra pick), Youboty and Ko Simpson. That wasn't a foundation, it was a sad joke, and the joke was on us fans.

I have never, ever, seen a confirmed report that some team was willing to trade up to #8. We heard all kind of crap here and elsewhere at that time, but nobody has ever said a thing about it. All we did hear is that we took the guy that people behind us wanted, but weren't willing to trade up for. I acknowledge that Marv could have poison-pilled any trade offers, but we simply don't know what happened for real.

 

Marv wanted to build a secondary in the draft because that group was the worst, DBs are also the most expensive FA to obtain(see: Clements), and IMO you never get what you pay for with any of them. Marv's thinking appeared to be: "Easier and cheaper to get FA lineman, for now, to fill in the gaps, and we will draft all skill players as a group, and let them learn together(see: Lynch, Edwards) we can always draft O line later, once we get the skill players in place." Right or wrong, he stuck to that philosophy, and now we have a very good core of skill players on this team, and nobody can deny that.

The Bills took a huge step in the right direction with Wood and Levitre. I am still in shock to be honest. At some point, they will have to undo the mistakes and neglect inflicted on us at the DT position, and now they need a left tackle. If they can just get rid of the Levy/Jauron mentality of placing the decondary above all else, this team can become a very food one as soon as 2010.

 

Of course, the above is nothing more than my respectful opinion.

As I said, I think the stuff they did this year has been part of the larger plan all along. Let's face it, you cannot draft 5 starting caliber O line, or 4 starting caliber D line in 3 drafts, never mind 1 or 2. You cannot sign FAs in one or two years either. It simply cannot be done, but, the Bills had to do something, immediately, with both lines.

 

I think they have taken a wise approach to slowly and soundly improve both lines each year, one player at a time, and not taken too much risk with any one player. As you said earlier, this front office learned that this team cannot afford JP and Fat Mike draft picks.

 

I don't like the fact that Peters is gone. I think they should have paid him STFU money at the same time they signed Dockery and Walker...but that might not have worked either, so who knows?

[ColdBlueNorth]

The hiring of Jauron essentially means that Marv was responsible for roughly the same amount of losing seasons as TD.

 

Hard to believe, but there it is.

 

Draft wise, TD was not good, Mike Williams et al. But did Marv do better? An over-rated Whitner, a couple of busts, a few diamonds in the rough. Not great though.

 

Maybe it is equal in futility, Marv and TD?

Marv took over a reeling organization and stabalized it, Donahoe left it reeling. I have a hard time blaming Marv for his brief venue at the head office.

 

The one thing I do not agree with is his hiring of DJ.

 

DJ brought in his staff, or promoted from within if Ralph was too cheap to pony up more cash. DJ and his coordinators strongly influence the type of players selected to run their system. And still the biggest thing in my mind is that DJ and his staff seem incapable of modifying their systems to fit the cast of players they have. We have at least as much talent as Miami, and the Jets, but both those teams gave us fits.

 

I applaud the strong hand taken with some slackers this off-season. Everyone knows that Dick is a players coach, but sometimes the best thing you can do with a player is to give them enough rope to hang themselves and cut them loose.

 

Will the jettisoning of Dockery and Peters hurt those two - porbably not, they have money in the bank now, but it certainly helps the team if you can remove the me-first attitude of Peters and the I-got-mine-so-I-can-coast attitude of Dockery. Let them take that "winning" attitude to their next team. I would rather see some hard-nosed blue collar effort on the line when it is 4th and 1.

 

We will see - I hope that old dog has learned some new tricks. I still think we are light on the defensive line, and I would prefer to see Wood at center (his natural position where he was a beast in college), but I understand putting a more seasoned guy in the middle to make the line calls.

[Red]

Interesting how Guy and Modrak seem to have had better "insight" under Russ Brandon these past two drafts, then they did under Donahoe and Levy. You blame them more then the GM's, however they seemed to do a better job after Donahoe and Levy left. You are proving that most of the blame therefore should be on the GM's they worked for! We will never know what Modrak and Guy were telling Donahoe and Levy all those years, since they have way to much interest in not burning bridges in the NFL to keep their current jobs. But here's one example for you: John Guy may have suggested that Levy sign a different free agent guard then Dockery, but Marv and Ralph may have over-ruled him for all we fans know!!

 

 

Yes, but you are forgetting that Buddy Nix was hired this offseason.

 

Now, true, he is only assigned to the SEC, BUT his presence is not to be underestimated.

 

He was on the staff when Polian, Butler, and AJ Smith were in the office and the Bills were in their heyday. He went to San Diego with Butler and AJ Smith, and helped turn San Diego from the proverbial punching bag to a Super Bowl contender.

 

In his stint with the Chargers, as the #2 personnel man behind AJ Smith, he is credited with bringing in much of the talent currently on San Diego's roster and contributing as starters.

 

With Nix now in the 'Mix', starting with this years draft, I believe that these players will start to pan out.

 

And to counter your point, the only consistent in terms of talent brought in under 3 different coaches and dozens of different coordinators, and 2 different GM's...was Modrak and Guy.