Well-respected coach doesn’t deliver in Buffalo. Matt Bowen
The Dick Jauron tenure in Buffalo is over, and although I’m surprised at the timing of the move — in the middle of the season — we all knew that the Bills franchise was leaning this way.
Buffalo didn’t progress under Jauron, and it seems that after the hot start last season, the team has taken steps backward. Quarterback Trent Edwards has regressed, and his production has been down. The big signing of Terrell Owens turned out to be nothing more than cheap summer fanfare. The defense under Perry Fewell, along with his Tampa 2 scheme, has produced turnovers but is still soft against the run. Jauron fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert a week before the season opened, and since then, the Bills have been anemic at best on offense. The hot topic last summer was the no-huddle attack, but that faded with little results.
And the bottom line is that this team is still losing, and losing in terrible ways, like it did last Sunday in Nashville — giving up 24 fourth-quarter points to the Titans in a 41-17 loss.
Many experts thought Jauron wouldn’t even make it to the 2009 season, but owner Ralph Wilson gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him have a final chance to turn things around. But just like opening night for the Bills on the road in New England, they’ve always been one or two plays away under Jauron.
And that just won’t cut it in this league.
But I still hate seeing it happen because I thought he was great to play for, and many of his current players will tell you the same thing. I was on Dick’s first team in Buffalo in 2006, and I consider him the best head coach I played for in the NFL — because he cared about his players and coached in a way that earned him the respect of the locker room. He treated us like he would treat members of his own family, and in a league where business comes first over everything — and I mean everything — he made me and my family feel at home around that football complex.
He told us in one of his first team meetings that the goal of the franchise was to win a championship in four years — but as you can see, that goal was never going to be met. Sure, I wanted Dick to succeed, and I will always respect him as a head coach — even after he called to cut me in the ’07 offseason.
I knew it was business as usual in the NFL, just as today’s news is business as usual in the NFL. And that’s why I can sit here and tell story after story about Dick as a coach, as a man and as someone who helped me personally off the field. But when you don’t win at this level after multiple opportunities — some that were not viewed as well-deserved by outsiders and fans — all you’re shown is the door, with a brown box full of desk supplies in your arms.
The Bills have major issues as a football team that need to be corrected, and from a franchise standpoint, this was the first of those moves done in order to win. The quarterback position will be next, and others will soon follow.
I feel terrible for Dick Jauron right now — I really do. But we all saw this coming, and I’m sure Dick did as well.
Follow me on Twitter: MattBowen41
Check out the Buffalo Bills Team Page—and voice your opinions.
Matt, thanks for this piece. I'm a lifelong Bills fan and I can honestly say, that the organizational dysfunction of having a "committee" approach in Buffalo never allowed Jauron to succeed. That, and Dick never hired the right OC or found a QB. It's sad cuz I absolutely loved DJ as a coach. I just hope to God, that Ralph Wilson at his age of 91, will finally realize unless you give us back a GM with full control like Bill Polian and Jon Butler had, this franchise will continue to wander in mediocrity.
I'm elated that Dick Jauron has finally been ousted, and make no mistake he deserved to be fired, but he's merely the mascot and a symptom of this franchises flaws. I'm not going to buy into anything until the entire football side of this organization is purged, from Tom Modrak and John Guy on down.
I believe that Jauron is a truly good and decent man and I've never heard anything to the contrary, but he's paid to win football games. He never did his job.
Go to the Bills website, at the bottom of the home page, and under "About Us" click on "Front Office". Ralph Wilson is listed first. Treasurer Jeff Littmann is second. The G.M. is third.
That tells you everything you need to know about the Bills' problems. No other team in the league is so obvious about where their priorities lie. Since Wilson made the decision in the early 90's to sack Polian and keep Littmann, thereby committing to keep payroll (and talent levels) low, they've been destined to fail.
Jauron, nice guy though he may be, is a second-rate coach, who took the job for second-rate money, coaching second-rate talent. But every dog and pony show needs the dog to bark every once in a while, or the fans go somewhere else. Wilson had to bark, and he did, and Jauron's gone, to be replaced for now by a 3rd rate coach who'll work for 3rd rate money.
The wrong coach got canned. Jauron is a genius compared to Eric Mangini. He set the Cleveland Franchise back 5 years. Buffalo has hope. Cleveland has become the Outhouse of the NFL. I really hope the Bills and their management can turn things around quickly. Lots of really great talent is coming to the league in 2010. I know Buffalo is a small market team but it always has been a great place to play. Look at it this way Buffalo fans....you don't want to be in Cleveland's shoes do you. Believe that light at the end of the tunnel is a Playoff wonderland. In Cleveland it a gosh darn Bullet Train.
Win a Championship in 4 years? LOL . Jauron has literally brought the Bills franchise to it's knees with his lack of emotion,lack of understanding of offense and his adherence to the outdated Tampa Bat cover 2 defense -which just doesn't cut it in Buffalo.
He takes cares of his players? Maybe he would make a good social worker then Matt because despite his Yale education he consistently showed a lack of smarts in his game day decision making.
The best coach you ever played for just coached last game as a head coach in the NFL.
Why? Because he's not a winner. Oh, but he's a nice guy. Phewy.....
Breaking down the slant route...
Why the rest of the NFL needs...
Chalkboard breakdown of the 9...
Breaking down my game notes from...
What I am looking for in the Giants-Patriots...
Nov 17, 2009
04:34 PM
Buffalo didn’t progressed under Jauron