Big Mistake #1 - Marv says he hopes to retain several of the assistant coaches. Are you KIDDING me? If TD ever made a statement like that (before the head coach was in place), he'd be run out of town on a rail and labelled as arrogant and power hungry! So our GM, and not head coach, is picking the assistants? Boy, that will really make the Bills head coaching job attractive!
In reflecting on this a bit, I think Levy is NOT arrogant and power hungry, but his mistake is he was thinking/speaking like a coach and not as a GM. Deep down he wants to coach this team - and this has negative implications not only for the next coach of the Bills, but also for the quality of the job Marv will do as GM.
Which leads me to BIG mistake #2. Minutes after Ralph says Marv is "absolutely not" a candidate for head coach, Levy refuses to rule it out. Not only does this appear to be the height of arrogance to contradict the owner in public, but in saying this Marv has just cast a PERMANENT shadow over the next Bills HC as long as Marv stays as GM. Again, upon reflection, I don't believe Marv purposely upstaged his friend, he's too classy to do that. I think Marv just fancies himself as a coach, and couldn't bring himself to take himself out of the running.
Obviously Ralph's hiring of Marv as GM was a direct reaction to the isolation Ralph felt from the operation while TD was in charge. Ralph reached out to a trusted friend and rejected the conventional super-GM type that he hired in TD. But in doing so, Ralph rushed into offering Marv the job, not realizing Marv still held coaching aspirations. After seeing yesterday's press conference, I don't think that Marv has (yet) fully thought through the GM job, nor has he given up his desire to coach again. I fear this organization will be rudderless unless/until Marv can get his mind around the fact that he is not going to coach this team. And I also fear that will be a really big hurdle for Marv to get over - in fact, he may never get over it.