Sound_n_Fury

Yeah, it's because owners are at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to inductees. No conspriacy...just a numbers problem.

Please pin this thread....

So Scott...who was your ideal GM candidate for the Bills? I take it that it wasn't Marv.

And don't forget the immortal Terry Bledsoe, a former newspaper columnist who RW hired as GM in 1983. (Trivia Answer: Bledsoe was the GM who let Jim Kelly take that phone call from the Houston Gamblers when he was in his office ready to sign a Bills contract).

Multi-millionare....

Mike Lodish! (six SBs over 11 years...)

Too much emphasis on wrestling.... To be honest, doesn't that just clear the deck for the incomming DC to pick his own guys?

Article: Marv Levy turned 80 in August and had been wondering when the phone was going to ring to offer him a job. It apparently did when Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, 87, announced Wednesday he is considering bringing Levy back to help restore the team Levy coached to four Super Bowls in a row. Levy most likely would assume many of the duties of general manager Tom Donohoe, fired Wednesday. "We're going to make that decision in the next few days," Wilson said. "Marv is a very qualified individual and I don't know whether that will take place or not." Wilson said he has not determined the status of coach Mike Mularkey, who has three years left on his contract. The owner said he plans to be more involved than he has been the last five years and will take back the role of team president, which also belonged to Donohoe. Wilson said assistant general manager Tom Modrak will retain his duties but is not a candidate for the GM job. Levy would be tempted to name himself coach. While living with wife Fran in Chicago, he wanted the Bears' general manager job Jerry Angelo got when Levy was only 75. Three years later, Levy wanted the job coach Lovie Smith got. When the phone didn't ring, Levy went about the business of getting elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001, singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for his beloved Cubs, appearing as a television analyst and writing his autobiography "Where Else Would You Rather Be?" (Sports Publishing, 2004) without any help from a ghostwriter. In the book, Levy wrote: "I could coach for another 10 years, at least." That would have had him pushing 90. He had retired as Bills coach after the 1997 season, a couple of years after a bout with prostate cancer, but soon felt rejuvenated. The only concession he makes to age is a loss of hearing. This could be a good thing now that criticism invariably will follow his return. There was a time when Levy lied about his age. In 1996, his published year of birth switched from 1928 to 1925. In 1997, he joined George Halas as the only 72-year-old men to coach in the NFL. Halas was 72 in his last season in 1967. Levy has been the victim of age discrimination at both ends of his life. When he was 28, he was bypassed as coach at his alma mater, Coe College, because he was too young. "The man who said that was wrong," Levy wrote. "Now, I was too old, and those who said that are just as wrong." Levy said his dad, Sam, who ran a wholesale produce market on South Water Street, lied about his age to join the Marines in World War I. In 1993, Levy tried to convince Wilson not to fire Bills general manager Bill Polian, architect of the four Super Bowl teams. Now, Levy would have to oversee an operation that failed to win two playoff games under former coach Wade Phillips, struggled under Donohoe and has had only one winning season under former coach Gregg Williams (three seasons) and current coach Mularkey (two). Levy always disliked the very thought of retirement. "If you start planning retirement, you don't know it, but you've already retired," Levy said. Wilson resuming the team presidency is reminiscent of Halas taking back that title with his Bears after son George "Mugs" Jr. died in 1979. Instead of giving the title to general manager Jim Finks, Halas became president, fired coach Neill Armstrong after the 1981 season and hired Mike Ditka in 1982, when Halas turned 87, same age as Wilson. When Levy was coaching in his 70s, players paid little attention to his age. "He could be 95 and we'd still respect him the same way. He'll outlast me by at least five or six years," running back Thurman Thomas said. Said tight end Pete Metzelaars: "It doesn't matter if a coach is 50 or 70; it's all ancient to most of the guys. The thing I'll remember is he treated us like men." Levy would ask players before every game, "Where else would you rather be than right here, right now?" Obviously, Levy's answer remains the same. After several recent job inquiries, he wrote: "I am convinced that none of those owners is guilty of seeking to discriminate, but they have succumbed to believing society's one still acceptable stereotype, the one that categorizes a person's capabilities not by their functional age, but by their chronological age."

Sounds good to me. Let Jim Overdorf and Jeff Litman worry about it and have Marv concentrate on the product on the field. Now, if you think it's really necessary, I suppose RW could sign Marv up for this!

Gee, and I thought it was "you don't give DTs north of 30 years old big signing bonuses" that caused us to pass on Pfat Pat... From what I can see, only 13 teams have more cap space than the Bills. Deciding on a player's value is not the same as knowing the intricacies of capology. If that were true, Clumpy would be an NFL GM.

Yeah, Cerrato has done a masterful job!

To be honest, I think pointing to Butler's problems is less germain today. The "dark secrets" of cap management have pretty much been worked out by teams today and there's not much mystery to it, like there was in the early 1990s. The Bills are in pretty good shape, capwise, so at least Marv's not starting from behind the 8-Ball.

Do you think Marv disagrees with any of those points? Run and stop the run, baby!

Or any random TSW poster....

I can't see Haz as a candidate with Marv ("don't be dumb and don't be dirty") as the new sherrif in town.

What did you expect / would have liked to hear him to say?

Modrak is scouting. Overdorf is contracts/capologist. Marv is leadership, direction and organization. Not much overlap.

Sounds good to me. That's a winning fomula in any organization.

Jim Overdorf

Sounds to me like he's open to new ideas and works hard to find whatever info can help him do the job. Polian had NO credibility as a scout when Marv started to buy his and his brother's reports (Polian was almost like Mel Kiper in that his reports were a moonlighting gig). A guy worried about his rep or who's convinced he's an expert would have passed on talking to an amature like Polian.

Maybe you should make this your new Avatar, Scott....

You're right, the stint as head of football ops was a short one. But the HC in the CFL plays a much bigger role in putting the team together than in the NFL. Take a look at the CURRENT front office and coaching staffs of the Allouttes: Front Office Coaching Staff Here's an interesting article on how Marv met Bill Polian. Sounds like he had a lot of input on player selection while he was coaching the Allouttes: http://69.84.36.14/index.php?Category=27&I...00&endYear=2001 Polian was in his early 30s, in love with football (he played at New York University) but working for a farm newspaper when he landed a scouting job with the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes. “I hadn’t even met him, but his scouting reports started coming in,’’ said Levy, who was Montreal’s head coach. “I said, ‘Who’s writing these? Man, are they good.’ ” Levy arranged a meeting, and the two hit it off.

Great post, particularly the Mike Williams part. IMO, the big thing lacking with TD "the talent evaluator" was his ability to judge character and mental toughness. That was the forte of Marv/Polian/Butler. Bills Babe has been posting a lot about bringing DA back as a consultant, and there's one thing I read about his player evaluation approach that seems to have been missing from OBD the last few years: measuring intangibles like character. **** "...[Adams] believes Jones' laid-back approach reflects a sense of humor. "His seeming aloofness, it doesn't bother me," he said. "I don't know that deep down, the guy doesn't have a burning in his gut." To pursue that, Adams said, he would look Jones in the eye and ask some tough questions, not necessarily about football." **** TD never seemed like the guy who wanted to ask those questions, or get very close to even knowing the players. Aloofness can be good in some situations, but not in terms of judging a person's inner makeup.

Agreed. I believe he won the Grey Cup as GM of the Allouttes. And his "absense" from the game hasn't exactly been lounging on some beach. His announcing and writing gigs have allowed him to stay up to date on the players and NFL trends.

I just had a thought. Clements was TD's guy from the start. I wonder if he forced MM to give the play calling back to him after he took it away. It would sure connect the dots on some of the things Ralph said yesterday...