Century statesman: Marv Levy celebrated for what he's meant to game, those who know him best
Hall of Famers
Published on : 9/2/2025
By Vic Carucci
Special to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Once again, the front door of the restaurant swung open on a busy Saturday afternoon. But this time was different. This time, heads turned. This time, people started to clap.
Emerging from the bright October sunshine in his hometown of Chicago, MARV LEVY, wearing a smile and using a walker for stability, made his way toward the end of the bar at Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse on Kenzie Street. Awaiting him were more smiling faces, those of several former Buffalo Bills players Levy coached during his Pro Football Hall of Fame career.
Fellow Hall of Famers JIM KELLY, ANDRE REED, THURMAN THOMAS and BRUCE SMITH were there. So were Steve Tasker, Darryl Talley, Cornelius Bennett, Don Beebe and John Kidd. They came, from different parts of the country, to celebrate the man who guided them on a historic run of four consecutive AFC championships in the 1990s.
The idea for this 2024 gathering grew out of a group text among the players’ wives. It happened soon after they learned their husbands, during a group text of their own, had been discussing Levy being 99 years old. What better reason, the wives thought, for a couples’ weekend getaway?
Calls were promptly placed to Levy’s wife, Fran, and daughter, Kimberly. Flights and hotel reservations were made. And a reunion — punctuated by a watch party at Duffy’s Tavern and Grille for the Bills-Houston Texans game the next day — was born.
“The most wonderful and overwhelming experience,” Fran Levy said of the lovefest honoring her husband.
For the players, it served as a reminder of how special it was to be in the company of someone who was much more than a coach. Someone who was a master communicator. Someone who knew how to get a team of big talent and an even bigger egos to bond and perform at a high level. Someone who provided exceptional trust in his squad and his assistant coaches with a largely hands-off approach that empowered them to do and be their best.
“I don’t know if there would have been another coach out there who would have been able to handle all the guys that we had on our team,” Kelly said.
“He’s the kind of guy — and he said it himself — that leadership isn’t getting people to fall in line behind you,” Tasker said. “It’s getting them to join you.”
Levy will tell you that effort was greatly helped by the makeup of the roster. The day the Bills hired him, he made the following promise to late club founder and fellow Hall of Famer Ralph Wilson Jr.: “We will only bring guys of high character onto this team. Maybe different personalities, but will they show up for work on time? Will they bounce back from disappointment? Will they respect their team?”
Levy isn’t merely an accomplished football mind. He’s a gentleman and a scholar. His pregame speeches were filled with references to military history, some of which reflected his dry wit. “Do you know why Hitler lost World War II? The turning point came in Russia. Why? I’ll tell you why. He couldn’t win on the road."
Levy, whose first head coaching job was in 1950 at St. Louis Country Day School, was the epitome of speak softly and carry a big stick.
“There’s not too many guys that I’ve met in my life like Marv,” Reed said. “You can throw all the other stuff out of the window, the football stuff and what he’s done in coaching and his career. I think that whole weekend was about looking at Marv, the person. That is a special human being that God put on this earth.”
To say Levy, still with a full head of his signature silver hair, looks good for his age is an understatement. He’d look great for someone decades younger.
“He’s in such wonderful shape...,” Hall of Famer and former Bills General Manager BILL POLIAN said. “Unless you knew his age, you would never know how old he is because he certainly doesn’t act that way and speak that way.”
Levy turned 100 on Aug. 3, one day after the enshrinement of the Class of 2025.
With a 112-70 regular-season record, Levy is the winningest coach in Bills history. He also had an 11-8 playoff record in his 11-plus seasons in Buffalo, where he arrived midway through the 1986 campaign after head coaching stints with the Kansas City Chiefs and the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes (where he won two league titles), assistant coaching stints with Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Rams and Washington, and multiple college stops. Levy was NFL Coach of the Year in 1988 and AFC Coach of the Year in ’88, 1993 and 1995.
His most transformative strategic impact on the Bills was utilizing an explosive, fast-paced no-huddle offense known as the “K-Gun,” variations of which can be seen to this day. It began taking form on the way home from the Bills’ 1989 divisional-round playoff loss at Cleveland when offensive coordinator Ted Marchibroda spoke with Levy about using the two-minute offense, which QB Kelly ran so effectively in nearly beating the Browns, as a primary scheme. Levy agreed, and during the offseason, the offensive nomenclature was shortened so it could be called quickly at the line of scrimmage. The Bills also shrunk their playbook, which Levy estimated was one-third the average length for most teams.
“To be honest, I would not have a Gold Jacket if it wasn’t for Marv because he’s the guy that allowed me to call the plays,” Kelly said. “And there’s no way that we would have made the Super Bowl four years in a row if he wasn’t our coach.”
A large part of that stemmed from Levy’s messaging. At the first team meeting of training camp, he’d cut through the outside noise about the bitter past and get his players focused on the hopeful future.
Kelly will tell you much of his Super Bowl regret is not winning one for Levy “because he sacrificed everything for us.” For Levy, it was easy to give his all to those who sacrificed for him. As he said during his speech at his 2001 Hall of Fame enshrinement, “Someone once lamented that given my enthrallment with this game, it is a shame that I never had a son. Well, he was wrong. Don’t tell me I never had a son. I’ve had thousands of them — of every size, shape, color, faith and temperament. And I loved them. Every one.”
Polian calls Levy a “genius.” Not because he’s a Phi Beta Kappa. Not because of his master’s degree in English history from Harvard.
“That’s the validation of his intelligence,” Polian said. “His genius is his ability to take the most complex subject and reduce it to the lowest common denominator that everyone can understand. For example, someone might ask a complicated question: How do you pick a quarterback? It might take me three paragraphs to give the answer. Marv will do it in one sentence: ‘He’s got to be a leader, got to be accurate, got to have the ability to perform under pressure.’ Boom. That’s part of the secret of Marv’s success as a coach.”
So, too, was how Levy gained and maintained the respect of his players. That will always be the hallmark of his legacy.
“All the great coaches … the (Vince) Lombardis, the (Bill) Belichicks … I think Marv is in that category,” Reed said. “Not because he was my coach, but because he stood for what the game is all about. Respect. Perseverance. You get the belief of that locker room, you can conquer anything.
“And that’s why we played for that guy.”
Special to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Once again, the front door of the restaurant swung open on a busy Saturday afternoon. But this time was different. This time, heads turned. This time, people started to clap.
Emerging from the bright October sunshine in his hometown of Chicago, MARV LEVY, wearing a smile and using a walker for stability, made his way toward the end of the bar at Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse on Kenzie Street. Awaiting him were more smiling faces, those of several former Buffalo Bills players Levy coached during his Pro Football Hall of Fame career.
Fellow Hall of Famers JIM KELLY, ANDRE REED, THURMAN THOMAS and BRUCE SMITH were there. So were Steve Tasker, Darryl Talley, Cornelius Bennett, Don Beebe and John Kidd. They came, from different parts of the country, to celebrate the man who guided them on a historic run of four consecutive AFC championships in the 1990s.
The idea for this 2024 gathering grew out of a group text among the players’ wives. It happened soon after they learned their husbands, during a group text of their own, had been discussing Levy being 99 years old. What better reason, the wives thought, for a couples’ weekend getaway?
Calls were promptly placed to Levy’s wife, Fran, and daughter, Kimberly. Flights and hotel reservations were made. And a reunion — punctuated by a watch party at Duffy’s Tavern and Grille for the Bills-Houston Texans game the next day — was born.
“The most wonderful and overwhelming experience,” Fran Levy said of the lovefest honoring her husband.
For the players, it served as a reminder of how special it was to be in the company of someone who was much more than a coach. Someone who was a master communicator. Someone who knew how to get a team of big talent and an even bigger egos to bond and perform at a high level. Someone who provided exceptional trust in his squad and his assistant coaches with a largely hands-off approach that empowered them to do and be their best.
“I don’t know if there would have been another coach out there who would have been able to handle all the guys that we had on our team,” Kelly said.
“He’s the kind of guy — and he said it himself — that leadership isn’t getting people to fall in line behind you,” Tasker said. “It’s getting them to join you.”
Levy will tell you that effort was greatly helped by the makeup of the roster. The day the Bills hired him, he made the following promise to late club founder and fellow Hall of Famer Ralph Wilson Jr.: “We will only bring guys of high character onto this team. Maybe different personalities, but will they show up for work on time? Will they bounce back from disappointment? Will they respect their team?”
Levy isn’t merely an accomplished football mind. He’s a gentleman and a scholar. His pregame speeches were filled with references to military history, some of which reflected his dry wit. “Do you know why Hitler lost World War II? The turning point came in Russia. Why? I’ll tell you why. He couldn’t win on the road."
Levy, whose first head coaching job was in 1950 at St. Louis Country Day School, was the epitome of speak softly and carry a big stick.
“There’s not too many guys that I’ve met in my life like Marv,” Reed said. “You can throw all the other stuff out of the window, the football stuff and what he’s done in coaching and his career. I think that whole weekend was about looking at Marv, the person. That is a special human being that God put on this earth.”
To say Levy, still with a full head of his signature silver hair, looks good for his age is an understatement. He’d look great for someone decades younger.
“He’s in such wonderful shape...,” Hall of Famer and former Bills General Manager BILL POLIAN said. “Unless you knew his age, you would never know how old he is because he certainly doesn’t act that way and speak that way.”
Levy turned 100 on Aug. 3, one day after the enshrinement of the Class of 2025.
With a 112-70 regular-season record, Levy is the winningest coach in Bills history. He also had an 11-8 playoff record in his 11-plus seasons in Buffalo, where he arrived midway through the 1986 campaign after head coaching stints with the Kansas City Chiefs and the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes (where he won two league titles), assistant coaching stints with Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Rams and Washington, and multiple college stops. Levy was NFL Coach of the Year in 1988 and AFC Coach of the Year in ’88, 1993 and 1995.
His most transformative strategic impact on the Bills was utilizing an explosive, fast-paced no-huddle offense known as the “K-Gun,” variations of which can be seen to this day. It began taking form on the way home from the Bills’ 1989 divisional-round playoff loss at Cleveland when offensive coordinator Ted Marchibroda spoke with Levy about using the two-minute offense, which QB Kelly ran so effectively in nearly beating the Browns, as a primary scheme. Levy agreed, and during the offseason, the offensive nomenclature was shortened so it could be called quickly at the line of scrimmage. The Bills also shrunk their playbook, which Levy estimated was one-third the average length for most teams.
“To be honest, I would not have a Gold Jacket if it wasn’t for Marv because he’s the guy that allowed me to call the plays,” Kelly said. “And there’s no way that we would have made the Super Bowl four years in a row if he wasn’t our coach.”
A large part of that stemmed from Levy’s messaging. At the first team meeting of training camp, he’d cut through the outside noise about the bitter past and get his players focused on the hopeful future.
Kelly will tell you much of his Super Bowl regret is not winning one for Levy “because he sacrificed everything for us.” For Levy, it was easy to give his all to those who sacrificed for him. As he said during his speech at his 2001 Hall of Fame enshrinement, “Someone once lamented that given my enthrallment with this game, it is a shame that I never had a son. Well, he was wrong. Don’t tell me I never had a son. I’ve had thousands of them — of every size, shape, color, faith and temperament. And I loved them. Every one.”
Polian calls Levy a “genius.” Not because he’s a Phi Beta Kappa. Not because of his master’s degree in English history from Harvard.
“That’s the validation of his intelligence,” Polian said. “His genius is his ability to take the most complex subject and reduce it to the lowest common denominator that everyone can understand. For example, someone might ask a complicated question: How do you pick a quarterback? It might take me three paragraphs to give the answer. Marv will do it in one sentence: ‘He’s got to be a leader, got to be accurate, got to have the ability to perform under pressure.’ Boom. That’s part of the secret of Marv’s success as a coach.”
So, too, was how Levy gained and maintained the respect of his players. That will always be the hallmark of his legacy.
“All the great coaches … the (Vince) Lombardis, the (Bill) Belichicks … I think Marv is in that category,” Reed said. “Not because he was my coach, but because he stood for what the game is all about. Respect. Perseverance. You get the belief of that locker room, you can conquer anything.
“And that’s why we played for that guy.”
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