...and give Marv Levy a role in football operations. The demise of Donahoe was predicted, and he deserved to be fired based on results alone. The Bills have not been to the playoffs under his management, and the team has been consistently poor for 5 years. Most of the problems stem from poor personnel decisions, especially at the quarterback position (see my previous post). Donahoe did not help his cause by being aloof and condescending to the media and some fans in recent months. This never plays well with the fan base, who, after all, are responsible for a lot of the revenues for the franchise.
Ralph Wilson, the owner of the Bills, may have erred by hiring Donahoe, but at least he is a class act when it comes to accepting accountability. He apologized to the fans today for the poor football that they have been watching. He also said that "the buck stops here" when it comes to the management of the franchise. That does contrast rather starkly (and favourably) with the high-handed invisibility cultivated by William Clay Ford of the Detroit Lions (who seems to think that when the GM fails to hire the right coaches, the right course of action is to allow him to keep firing coaches, instead of firing the GM). No matter, the cynic in me says that if the fans in Detroit are insufficiently "grateful", the Ford family will simply sell the franchise to an ownership team to take it to LA.
Mike Mularkey has survived, but some of the assistant coaches were not so lucky. Mularkey will need help from Levy in building bridges to the players, some of whom (Eric Moulds, Sam Adams) are disgruntled by his leadership style. The Eric Moulds issue still hangs over the team - Moulds may be cut simply for salary cap reasons, but he is a class act, is the Bills' longest serving player (he is just about the only player remaining from the time when Marv Levy coached the Bills) and his departure might make free agents reluctant to come to Buffalo.
Levy is a remarkably energetic 81 years of age, but he has some challenges over the next few months.