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Bills fire president and general manager Donahoe


MrAndMrsFish

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ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. ? (AP) ? Tom Donahoe was fired as Buffalo Bills president and general manager Wednesday in a shakeup that also marked Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy's return to the franchise, this time in a consultant's role.

 

The moves were announced by Bills owner Ralph Wilson, just a few days after he promised changes for an underachieving team that finished 5-11 and missed the playoffs for a sixth straight season.

 

Donahoe, the only executive to hold the president's title in the franchise's 46-year history, was dismissed after five seasons. Despite increasing the team's ticket base, Donahoe's ultimate failure was the team's failure to win.

 

The Bills went 31-49 during Donahoe's tenure ? the 31 wins tied with Cleveland for the third fewest in the NFL during that span. Besides Houston, which joined the league in 2002, the Bills are the only AFC team since 2001 that has failed to make the playoffs.

 

Buffalo hasn't made the playoffs since 1999.

 

Wilson asked Levy to help with the search for the next general manager.

 

Levy, who turns 81 this year, is the team's winningest coach with a 112-70 record and led the Bills to four

consecutive AFC titles in the early 1990s before retiring after the 1997 season.

 

Levy's involvement is considered a mild surprise, but reflects Wilson's desire to bring in a trusted confidante and longtime friend to an organization that, at times, alienated fans and even the team's owner under Donahoe.

 

Wilson said he has not determined the status of coach Mike Mularkey. Mularkey has three years left on his contract.

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Donahoe probably deserved to be fired, if for no other reason than his ignorance in addressing the O-line over his tenure.

 

Early reports were that Levy was taking the GM role - thankfully that doesn't seem the case. I like Levy in the consultant role, but not as the main guy.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Mularkey stayed now that Levy's in there - he's on record as being a supporter of Mularkey.

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I for one believe that Donahoe definitely deserved to be fired. I think the team is smart enough to not just hand over GM duties to someone with no experience (sans a GM role in the CFL), I saw this going down like the Dan Marino thing a few years back if Levy was indeed named GM.

 

Mularkey gets a pass from me, I think his hands were tied his first year having to play Bledsoe, and he did pretty well there given that Bledsoe is absolute garbage. And this year I think his hands were tied with having to play JP because that's what the organization (read: Donahoe) was pimping right after letting Drew go. If he goes into next year saying that there will be an open QB competition, I'll be happy.

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