Experience best teacher for new coach Jauron

[The_Philster]

The Buffalo Bills haven't gotten to training camp or played a game yet. But one of the team's veteran leaders likes what he sees from new coach Dick Jauron. "I've got a coach who is a scholar who says, "You know what? This is not rocket science. I'm not in the lab trying to invent a new potion,' " free safety Troy Vincent said. " "This is who we are and this is what we're going to do. Everyone just take care of their own assignment. We're going to run hard. We're going to maintain our lanes.' That's experience. That's wisdom talking." more (http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060604/2050212.asp)

[ICE74129]

Fletcher is staying home in cleveland? Even worse, Jason Peters thinks he is good enough to sit home as well?

I dont' think DJ is the issue at all after listening to Vincents comments. I really have to question some of the remaining veterans on this team. I think Marv has more house cleaning to do this offseason and it starts with Willis and London.

Man Donahoe really screwed up this team from top to bottom. It may take three offseasons instead of two to fix it.

[Don't Panic]

Fletcher will come around. Can't say the same about Willis, but Fletcher will buy in before week one. I agree that it's discouraging he can't go to OTAs, but I'm not ready to push the panic button on him just yet.

[Michael82]

I'm suprised that Liam Ezekiel is the backup at MLB. I figured it would be Stamer or someone else. That's good. I liked what i saw from Ezekiel last year in camp and on special teams. :up:

[BillsFever21]

We had almost perfect attendance for these things before this year. Fletcher and most of the others all participated in the OTA's.

This means either they don't buy into the Jauron and Levy era and could care less about them or means that they are sick of playing here. It may be a little of both.

Even when that bum Mularkey was here everybody was showing up. This doesn't look good for the new Levy-Jauron era.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

While I'm not saying that it will always work out this way by any means, sometimes a HC who fails in his first head coaching job will become a much better HC the second time around because he learns what not to to as a HC from his failure in the first job. It happened with Belichick (although I'm not saying that DJ will be a Belichick!--it's way too early to say what kind of coach DJ will be yet) and there have been others in the past as well. As Bills fans, we can only hope that Jauron has learned from the mistakes that he made in the past and will be a better coach for the Bills than he was then. We won't know, though, until we see how the team responds to him--although I think that it is a positive sign that Vincent has come out publicly in support of him.


....I dont' think DJ is the issue at all after listening to Vincents comments. I really have to question some of the remaining veterans on this team. I think Marv has more house cleaning to do this offseason and it starts with Willis and London.

Man Donahoe really screwed up this team from top to bottom. It may take three offseasons instead of two to fix it.

I totally agree. I think TD went for sheer talent and star-power over attitude in the hope that the team would win quickly enough that the attitude would not go sour (and winning always makes a team's attitude better), but that doing that ended up biting him in the butt. And, while Levy has gotten rid of some people and brought in a lot of new faces to try to change the attitude of the team, there may indeed still be some more house-cleaning for him to do because not every guy from last season will get the message that Levy and DJ are trying to send--some will some won't.

And, that's why I have been advocating patience with this rebuilding process. It's not that I "love" Marv (I do respect him for his experience and accomplishments) or think that he can do no wrong, but because I think that the attitude in the lockerroom that the team showed on and off the field last season was so bad that it may take three off-seasons to clear the atmosphere and replace the talent that will have to be let go. That's not something that, realistically, is easy to do or can be done overnight. And, IMHO we have to give Marv and DJ the time to do that and construct a team that reflects their program before we can judge how successful or good of a job they have done. (And, how long it has been since the team made the playoffs is immaterial--the goal isn't to win the playoffs, it's to put together a team that can consistently challenge for and win a Super Bowl, just making the playoffs to be able to say that the Bills have made the playoffs is "fool's gold"--it's the Lombardi Trophy that counts!).



....This means either they don't buy into the Jauron and Levy era and could care less about them or means that they are sick of playing here. It may be a little of both.

Even when that bum Mularkey was here everybody was showing up. This doesn't look good for the new Levy-Jauron era.

In some cases, I'm sure that you are definitely right. And, I would expect those players to be gone soon, probably after this season. I don't think Marv-Jauron want anyone on the team who can't or won't buy into their program any more than those guys who can't or won't buy into the program want to remain with the Bills.

Still, having made the mistake of coming down hard on a couple of guys who missed the first OTA sessions when it turned out that they actually had good reasons to do so that weren't reported until afterwards, I have to say that some of these guys may be missing not so much because they do not buy into what Marv and DJ are doing, but because they have legitimate reasons for not being in Buffalo that we don't know about at this point. Those guys I don't have a problem with and I suspect neither do Marv, DJ and the other coaches. It's the guys who don't have a legitimate reason not to be in town for an OTA week that I do have a problem with and that I would bet Marv and DJ, etc. will be watching closely, with an eye to replacing them if need be.

Willis, of course, is one guy who stands out. Still, he's supposedly working out at "Tha U" and he's not the only high profile RB who has skipped his team's OTAs to work out in Florida: Edgerrin James and Fred Taylor are two others who have done exactly the same thing as Willis (much to the ire of their HCs as well!). As far as the rest are concerned, Villarial is the only other player that I believe has missed two weeks of OTAs so far, but the team did say that they were going to try to give him less work before the season to try to keep him healthier and fresher than the last two years, so it's hard to say whether this is just on him or something that he worked out with the coaching staff.

As for the guys who have missed just a week of sessions or one or two days, we'll just have to see. I'm sure some will have had legit reasons, but I'm equally sure that you are right about some not buying into the new regime's program. Knowing what happened with the Bills last season, I'm sure Marv and DJ are watching very closely to see which players those are so that they can ship them out as soon as practicable.

[ghz in pittsburgh]

Fletcher is entering his contract year and as a veteran he should know that he's not an ideal fit for the cover 2 scheme. Still I believe that he'll put a great effort on the field ...

[ghz in pittsburgh]

What is interesting in that article is another piece that pointed out the problem of 2005 - right at the top of coaching staff and the direction Mularkay is/isn't taking. Players know what's going on and management had an obvious discord with vet players to begin with. There is only one solution to this: be successful. If you win, you win over those players. Mularkay didn't, so things fell apart.

In the off-season, Bills had two choices. Continue to go with Mularkay and his maturing as HC as well as his movement or start anew. Whether by choice or by design, they went with the new direction. There is no mistake now that they are pushing for a youth movement. I don't know any veteran will be very excited at this time for the upcoming season. Professinal, yes; excited, uh... let's see. It's only natural based on what happened here before.

Once again, if Jauron brings success, then a lot of the vets will be excited soon. But I have the feeling that the Bills are not like when Cowher took over the Steelers - he started with 6 straight playoff run. The Bills are more like the normal NFL teams that changed its GM and coaches, philosophy, the whole 9 yard. They are going to go through core player changes, stay in the bottom for a year or two. Good examples like JJ took over Dallas, Belichick took over NE; Bad examples like Butch Davis took over Cleveland, Norv Turner took over Oakland. The Veteran players can see through all of those cases and figure out where they'll wind up.