Razzman

I can see it now! At 11 am on Friday the 13th. Bills announce their new coach... The next Bills head coach!

There have been a lot of suggestions about who the Bills could hire as their next head coach. These names have been dropped: Former Bills linebacker Jim Haslet, Dan Reeves, Jim Fassel , Dom Capers, Steve Mariucci, Paul Pasqualoni, Dick Jauron, Dick LeBeau, Mike Sherman, Jimmy Johnson, Lou Saban, Wade Phillips, Ted Cottrell, James Lofton, Ron Rivera, Bruce DeHaven, Jim Bates, Scotty Bowman, Ted Nolan, Bobby Ross, and others. But there's one obvious choice that no one has dared mention.... Our mystery coach!

Trying to find articles talking about Levy being the next Bills GM and found this one on the AP... Bills Owner Considering Marv Levy As GM By JOHN WAWROW The Associated Press ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Buffalo Bills president Tom Donahoe is out, coach Mike Mularkey's job is safe, and guess who might be coming back? Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy, this time as general manager. Continued... http://www.normantranscript.com/feeds/apco...ces_apstoryview

I couldn't agree with you more. I got Marv Levy's book and he wrote about how he handled the "Bickering Bills." It was tough that one year back in '89 and Ralph Wilson called him to Detroit for a meeting after that season. Marv was worried that he was going to get canned, but instead he and Ralph worked on ways on getting team unity. Mularkey has yet to attend that course for head coaches Team Unity 101, let alone "How to motivate your team."

Bill Polian and John Muckler are doing wonders now that they are out of Buffalo. Not that they didn't have great success when they were a part of the Buffalo sports scene. But the owners of the Sabres and Bills let go of two of the most brillant sports minds of this era and now the fans in this city are suffering. The two geniuses that were chased out of Buffalo Muckler and Polian are on top of the sports world Where would the two Buffalo teams be right now? If the Sabres hadn’t fired John Muckler and Bills owner hadn’t canned Bill Polian, just how would the Buffalo teams have fared the past decade? Right now, the two former Buffalo General Managers have built their two respective teams into juggernauts. Muckler has the cream of the crop in his Ottawa Senators. To be fair, Muckler took over a team that was already a good one, but added the right ingredients and now the Senators are practically unstoppable. The same can be said, and even more, about Bill Polian’s Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are 12-0 and are fast approaching the dream season only accomplished by the 1972 Miami Dolphins. John Muckler was hired by the Buffalo Sabres originally as the director of hockey operations. Before he came to Buffalo, Muckler was an assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup teams in 1984 and 1985. In 1990, he was the Oilers head coach and led them to the Stanley Cup championship once again. With the Sabres, Muckler spent a couple years behind the bench and was also the team’s GM from 1993 until he was chased out of town. It was during the successful 1996-97 season when coach Ted Nolan led the Sabres to the top spot in the Eastern Conference that he was named the NHL executive of the year by The Sporting News. Muckler and Nolan had been arguing the entire season and didn’t see eye-to-eye. It centered around Dominik Hasek’s problems with the Sabres coach and it finally ended with both Muckler and Nolan leaving the team after the season. Muckler quickly found a job with the New York Rangers from 1997-2000 as their head coach. On June 12, 2002, Muckler joined the Ottawa Senators as their new general manager. Since then, he has worked wonders with the Sens and has them primed to go all the way to the Stanley Cup finals this season. Muckler was dead serious in getting the Senators the talent to finally get over the huge hump in the playoff road that blocked them year in and year out...the Leafs. Muckler purchased a couple of Leaf blowers and one big Leaf stopper. First, Muckler fired long-time coach Jacques Martin after the Sens were kicked out of the playoffs the last time by the Leafs and this summer replaced him with Bryan Murray. Next on the things to do list was getting a good goaltender who would be able to come up big when it counted the most. He went to retired former Vezina Trophy winner Dominik Hasek. Muckler and Hasek went back to the Buffalo days when the Czech goalie was in his glory. So far the experiment with the 40-year old Hall of Fame-bound goalie is a huge success. Hasek, after having a groin operation to finally fix his perennial problem, has been back to his old form, to the delight of Muckler and the Sens fans. An even bigger move was signing free agent Marian Hossa to a huge contract and then turning around trading him to Atlanta for Dany Heatley. Heatley has been a ball of fire so far this season with the Senators. In 25 games, Heatley has 19 goals and 22 assists. The Senators were the first team to break the 100-goal mark and are on pace to get an all-time high 138 points. After 25 games, the Sens were 21-4 with 42 points. Their most lopsided win was in Buffalo’s HSBC Arena, which used to be a house of horrors for the Senators. The Senators blasted the Sabres 10-4 and Muckler’s new team made a bold statement to his former team. Bill Polian is another sports mastermind that was chased out of town. Polian first became the Bills general manager back on December 30, 1985. The Bills had suffered two straight 2-14 seasons and Polian built the team up to become the most dominant team ever in the NFL’s AFC conference. In his first year, Polian really went to work in rebuilding the team from the ground up. First, he talked Jim Kelly into coming to Buffalo after the Bills former #1 pick refused to play in Buffalo and joined the USFL for a couple years. During that 1986 season the Bills had a rough start with head coach Hank Bullough, and Polian brought in an old friend Marv Levy to rescue the team. The next couple years, Polian got busy drafting some outstanding players such as Bruce Smith, Nate Oddoms, Shane Conlon, Thurman Thomas and working out a deal that brought Cornelius Bennett to Buffalo. While working closely with Marv Levy, Polian made a recipe that was molded into the best team Buffalo ever had. The Bills went to four straight Super Bowls and the handwriting of Polian was all over those teams. Polian was named the NFL Executive of the Year Award in 1988 and in 1991. Polian was very outspoken and even once told the Buffalo fans to "get outta town" if they didn’t like how the team was being run. His brash manner often got him into trouble with the two people over him in the organization, Ralph Wilson and team treasurer Jeff Littmann. Because of a situation between Polian and Littmann as fiery as the Muckler-Nolan feud, Polian was let go as the Bills GM on February 4, 1993 to the shock of the Bills Nation. Polian then went to the expansion Carolina Panthers and molded a great team in almost an instant. In just their second year of existence, the Panthers just missed out in making it to the Super Bowl, losing in the NFC Championship game. For his efforts, Polian was once again named the NFL Executive of the Year. Bills fans were fuming over the loss of Polian even more as the team started to head to the bottom of the pack. With his success in turning around the Panthers so quickly, a golden carrot was offered Polian by the Indianapolis Colts owner Robert Irsay. He offered Polian the keys to the Colts car...President and GM if he would sign on the contract he was holding. Suddenly, Polian was now wearing the Colts logo on his jacket. He has turned the Colts into a smooth running machine, one that has finally vaulted ahead of the New England Patriots and are on the verge of repeating the feat only the Miami Dolphins have accomplished, a perfect season. But all the success hasn’t curbed Polian’s vibrant emotions or his mouth. With the Patriots having a curse on the Colts for the past few years in the post season (similar to the Toronto Maple Leafs curse on the Ottawa Senators the past 10 years in the playoffs), Polian really wanted to win the Colts matchup with the Pats as badly as he ever wanted to win a game. Polian got so wiled up that he made a scene in the press box when the Pats and Colts locked horns earlier this season. His boisterous rants could not be ignored by the Patriots media two rows below the raucous Polian. The reporters for the Providence Journal took exception to Polian’s antics and wrote an article the next day called "Press-box sideshow," written by The Journal's Tom Curran. Polian was upset when Pats backup QB Doug Flutie decided to rollout on one final play before the clock ran out and Polian shouted "break his leg." That was the last of a night of outbursts by the Colts President where he continuously pounded the table in front of him, tossing his notebook, punching a his left fist into the air, leaping from his seat and "cursing unintelligibly under his breath." It seems that Polian hasn’t lost his youthful vigor. When asked to compare his current undefeated Colts team to those 4 Super Bowl Bills teams, Polian says, "We have not achieved what those Bills teams achieved. No one is ever going to go to four straight Super Bowls again. You cannot make a legitimate comparison in terms of team achievements until we equal what they did, at least one time." Polian does go into greater detail when comparing the coach from that great Bills team and the one directing his current Colts. Tony Dungy draws a very close comparison to Levy. "Both coaches are amazingly similar," remarked Polian. "Intelligence, modesty, sincerity, clarity of thought, of speech. Ability to focus a team and their approach to the game. The approach is eerily similar." "Marv always preached that if you picked the right people and gave them direction, the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts," Polian went on. "That was a special group with a special bond, and if you were around them for any length of time, you realized that. "I think we have people here (in Indy) who could do it. If there's anything comparable, it might be that. I'm seeing that. Yes I am." During his farewell speech in Buffalo after Wilson fired him, Polian said this about the team he had forged, "They're a very special group of men. Cherish them, you will not see their like again." The Bills fans now see his words as dogma. The Bills haven’t made the playoffs since 1999 and haven’t been to the AFC Championship game since the year after he left. Both the Bills and Sabres fans wish that neither Muckler nor Polian had gotten run out of town. They can only dream of the championships denied them because of the shallow thinking of the Sabres and Bills owners.

I've had time to review this situation a little more, and tried to understand Ralph Wilson's role in this. He was between a rock and a hard place and tried to make a decision that would not be too harsh on either of the two sides. While I still think that Mularkey should be fired, if not now, at year's end, Wilson tried to defuse a very explosive situation and probably accomplished that. With all that being said, I still support Moulds in all he's done here these past 10 years and think that Mularkey could have handled the situation a lot more professionally.

Anyone who feels that Eric Moulds got the raw end of this deal can show support to Moulds by wearing an Eric Moulds jersey, or anything with #80 on it. The security guards can't throw us out for wearing his jersey and this is the perfect way of showing that we're on his side. Moulds has done his bit throughout the ten years he's been with the team. He's taken pay cuts, has accepted the role of a decoy receiver and has had so many incompetent quarterbacks that he can't count them on two hands. But he has always done whatever the team asked him, and now it is asking him to take a loss of week's paycheck while Bills head coach Mike Mularkey gets a pat on the back and a vote of confidence by the Bills 87-year old owner.

Sometimes I wonder about the mind-set of Bills GM Tom Donahoe. Just what in the world is he thinking of when he makes the draft selections. A couple years ago, he shocked the NFL by drafting Willis McGahee in the first round when the Bills had a very capable runner in Travis Henry. While McGahee proved his worth last season, Donahoe still is paying for the ill effects of that selection as he has yet to unload a very unhappy Henry. Saturday, with the Bills needed to fill two huge holes left by the departure of free agents Jonas Jennings (offensive line) and Pat Williams (D-line), what does Donahoe do but select a wide receiver! Not only that, but the receiver is a smurf, going at 5'-9" and weighs only 168 pounds. The Bills have Lee Evans (last year's #1 pick) and Eric Moulds. Sure, they could use a good third receiver as Josh Reed has proven to be a bust, but there were more immediate needs than a wide receiver. JP Losman will be running for his life with the Swiss cheese O-line he has. Drew Bledsoe will be glad he's in Dallas behind a much bigger wall than he ever saw in Buffalo. Just what is going on in Donahoe's head??? Images of sugar plums dressed as wide receivers it seems!

Tom Donahoe is making some more questionable choices in the draft. While I agree with the third round pick of Kevin Everett, the first round choice for diminutive Roscoe Parrish at receiver raised a lot of eyebrows in Bills country. They definitely didn’t need a receiver when there were glaring needs on the offensive and defensive lines. Now, Donahoe has chosen center Raymond Preston from Illinois in the 4th round. His size of 6'-5" 311 lbs is impressive, but the overall review that ESPN gave him raises a red flag. According to ESPN "In our opinion, he's worth taking a chance on in the seventh round but not any earlier." Why in the world would the Bills take him in the 4th round then, when even ESPN said he was a risk in the 7th round?? Another flag was that ESPN said that he doesn’t run well and can’t make the blocks or pass protect like he should. "He doesn't run well enough to consistently reach his blocks at the second level and he isn't quick enough to prevent penetration in pass protection against elite one-gap DT's." Here’s the ESPN rating of Preston... http://insider.espn.go.com/nfldraft/draft0...yer%3Fid%3D8503 Raymond Preston - 4th round Overall: Preston red-shirted in 2000 and he appeared in two games of the 2001 season. He took over as a starter in 2002 and has been the fulltime starter the past three seasons. Preston is a blue-collar player that never stops working and rarely makes mistakes, but his potential is limited by his lack of natural ability. He doesn't run well enough to consistently reach his blocks at the second level and he isn't quick enough to prevent penetration in pass protection against elite one-gap DT's. That said; Preston's work ethic, size and sound technique are enough to give him a chance to compete for a roster spot as a reserve in the NFL. In our opinion, he's worth taking a chance on in the seventh round but not any earlier. Eric King - 5th round In the 5th round, the Bills took another player that ESPN had slated for the late rounds. They picked a corner who is even smaller than Parrish, by an inch. King is 5'-8" and weighs 189. I can see Kings playing Parrish a lot in the practices this year. Here's ESPN's rating on King.... http://insider.espn.go.com/nfldraft/draft0...yer%3Fid%3D8141 Overall: King took over as a fulltime starting cornerback as a true freshman in 2001 and remained a fulltime starter since throughout his four-year career at Wake Forest. He started all 12 games as a junior in 2003 (59 total tackles, three INT's and 15 PBU) and 10-of-11 games as a senior in 2004 (40 tackles, two sacks, one INT and 11 PBU). King does not have good size and, at best, will be limited to a sub-package role as a slot cover corner in the NFL. However, he has the quickness, ball skills and just enough speed to develop into a dime DC in the NFL, which is why he's worth taking a chance on in the late rounds of the 2005 draft.

Losman showed great promise in training camp and the two preseason games which he played. Losman displayed the great scrambling abilities that the Bills have lacked since Doug Flutie. In the two preseason games, Losman hit 9 of 11 passes for 78 yards and scrambled seven times for 80 yards. Vincent committed the cardinal sin of hitting Losman on the tail end of the rookie quarterback's run around right end. It was claimed to be an accident, but the quarterbacks wear red jerseys and the defense is not to make contact with them at ANY time. Because Vincent is a veteran and is expected to make a huge contribution to the defense, he probably won't be fined by Bills coach Mike Mularkey. However, if this were Bill Parcell's team, Vincent would have been given a one-way ticket out of Buffalo. While Losman is a rookie and probably wouldn't start any games this season, the loss is huge for the Bills. On WGR Sports radio, they are calling it a disaster for the Bills. Two of the 3 sports talk hosts have rated it a 10 in severity to the team in a 1-10 rating system. Losman will lose valuable playing time in preseason and possibility of getting into some regular season games. However, the loss of Losman doesn't immediately impact the team that much. However, for the future of Losman, it sets him back at least one year. While some can compare his injury to that which Michael Vick suffered last season in which the Falcons scrambling QB was able to return late in the season, it is doubtful that the Bills will keep him on their active roster. The Bills say the injury will put Losman on the shelf from 8-12 weeks. They may put him on injured reserve where they could bring him back at the end of the season, similar to what they did with Willis McGahee last year. Or they could write this season off completely for the rookie and concentrate on getting him healthy for next season, which would then become yet another rookie year for Losman. Vick made a remarkable recovery last year, coming back the first week in December after breaking his leg in preseason. After missing 11 with a broken leg, Vick came back with a vengeance, rambling for 141 yards in his first game back. However, the Falcons were dependent on Vick coming back as he was their No. 1 star. Losman is not the starter and it is doubtful that he would have won the job. However, he does lose a lot of valuable practice time and fill in roles this season. Losman was definitely the answer to Bledsoe's immobility and was employed as a new offensive weapon in his two appearances. Now, all that is over in one quick misguided hit by Troy Vincent.