i hope these bills can live up to levy's efforts. it would be great to see them live again, and maybe this time even win a super bowl.

Now all the Bills need to do is to hire someone from the Parcells/Belichick tree, and Aaron will begin killing himself with butter knives.

Josh McDaniels is theoretically available...

Charlie Weis is going to be available soon.

I hope the Bills aren't struck with 'Blue Jays syndrome' - as a Jax fan can testify, it's tough to be stuck in the same division as Leviathan... (Although the extra wild-card spot in football does help, which is why it's not 'Jaguars syndrome.)

I think it is fair to say that this move has bugger all to do with the Patriots and everything to do with Levy being about three hundred years old.

Oh, certainly - I was thinking of the Bills' prospects in the post-Levy era.

As a Bills AND a Jay's fan, I must say that the 2000's have been pretty lean. Yes, I most definitely would say I have Jeter/Brady envy.

It's sad to see Levy go, but I guess it could not have been a long term solution. He did an admirable job cleaning up the mess Donohoe left.

The Bills (and Levy) have been remarkable at obtaining "depth" players-- look at all their injuries, and yet they managed to finish 7-9 with average DVOA. Could 2008 be the year they finally topple New England (who will most likely be tired of winning after this year)?

And yes, part of me still believes this will be the year the Jays finish ahead of the Yankees/BoSox monster.

I'm a Bills fan, and I love Marv, but I've gotta be fair. If this were baseball and we were dealing with a GM like Brian Sabean -- whose decisions are often flawed but somehow pan out -- I wouldn't neglect to mention his mistakes.

Sure, Levy's picks have turned out great, but I don't think this changes the fact his management of the drafts -- mainly the first round -- were a failure, or at least poorly executed.

The Whitner pick stands out for me. I remember Matt Leinart was still on the board when it was Buffalo's turn to pick, and there were several teams that would have traded up with us to draft him with the 8th pick. Given that Whitner was projected to go in the mid-to-high teens, I thought it was a colossal waste to stand pat and not use that position to our advantage. A more aggressive GM probably would have.

Were there really several teams willing to draft up? Seeiing as no team drafted up for Leinart, and in general teams seem to have cottoned on to the fact that drafting up is not a good idea, I don't know. Also, given that Whitner is such a good player, perhaps other scouts had him placed higher than the "experts" who write mock drafts.

Boof, you're wrong. Denver desperately wanted to trade up to draft Leinart or Cutler in '06, but the Bills didn't bite. Would have to think that at least another team was looking to move up. So yes, there was interest in that 1st rd pick that year. Link=name.

I thought Levy did a really good job in the last draft, and his picks from previous years have been panning out as well. It was fun to make jokes about him being old when Levy first came back with the Bills, but I don't think the game passed him by. Of course, at that age, I wouldn't want to be putting in the kind of hours a modern GM needs to put in to succeed.

The complaints about the Whitner pick (which I agree are valid) remind me of a line from Pulp Fiction:

"That's a pretty good milkshake. I don't know if it's worth five dollars but it's pretty good."

In other words, there's two parts to making a good pick--picking a good player, and paying the correct market value for him (even in a draft). The former is much more important, but the latter is important, too.

13. I think the second factor is the most important.

13. That must've been Bravo's watered down version of "Pulp Fiction." =)

I was responding to Aaron's "we were wrong" take, which I think isn't entirely true. I sort of felt most fans weren't as critical of Levy's eye for talent as they were his ability to read how other teams valued prospects, which is critical in drafts.