Jauron turning Buffalo Bills around

[G. Host]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/columnists/rgosselin/stories/122107dnspogosselin.2b37686.html
The Buffalo Bills are officially an afterthought now, as is their coach Dick Jauron. That's a shame. They both deserve better.

In losing a wild-card showdown at Cleveland last weekend, the Bills tumbled to 7-7. That dropped them two games back of the Browns for the final AFC wild-card spot with two games to play. But the fact that the Bills even played a meaningful game in December is testimony to Jauron.

....


The NFL Coach of the Year Award will feature a slate of worthy candidates: Bill Belichick (New England), Mike McCarthy (Green Bay), Wade Phillips (Dallas) and Romeo Crennel (Cleveland). But no coach has done more with less in 2007 than Jauron.


And this comes not from a homer but a respected writer in Dallas.

[Forward_Lateral]

But GHost, Jauron is a terrible coach according to many of the experts around here. :idunno:

[Turf]

Jauron is a teriible game day coach. Period. He also hired assistants as poor as he is in game day situations AND he doesn't correct them. During the game he has no idea what's going on. If he did, we'd easily be 10-4 right now.
Give him props for his locker room and personell preparation? Absolutely. Coach of the year? That's all we need is to drag this boat anchor of a coach around for the next 4 years guaranteeing us mediocrity at best.

[Mr. Pink]

I love how we can only credit the coach with losses on the schedule but not wins. This team could have folded like a tent weeks ago. Remember when we were sitting around wondering if we were gonna be 0-16?

A lesser coach, Mularkey anyone, and this team would have laid down like a rug. How do we know this? Look at 2005.

But God forbid we can give credit for the coaching to get us to 7-7 right now. They've only cost us games, not helped win any. Nor have they helped the team be in every game this year, outside of both New England deabcles.

[Jan Reimers]

I think Jauron and Levy have us going in the right direction. We have some key players coming off IR, ten draft picks, and with a couple of FA pickups, we should be in the playoff hunt next year.

I'm not in love with Jauron as a game coach, but he is great at getting us prepared and motivated to play on Sunday. I think a better OC will also make him better.

[Mahdi]

Jauron is a teriible game day coach. Period. He also hired assistants as poor as he is in game day situations AND he doesn't correct them. During the game he has no idea what's going on. If he did, we'd easily be 10-4 right now.
Give him props for his locker room and personell preparation? Absolutely. Coach of the year? That's all we need is to drag this boat anchor of a coach around for the next 4 years guaranteeing us mediocrity at best.
we could easily be 4-10 also if it weren't for the coaches and their ability to win despite our lack of talent.

[OpIv37]

I love how we can only credit the coach with losses on the schedule but not wins. This team could have folded like a tent weeks ago. Remember when we were sitting around wondering if we were gonna be 0-16?

A lesser coach, Mularkey anyone, and this team would have laid down like a rug. How do we know this? Look at 2005.

But God forbid we can give credit for the coaching to get us to 7-7 right now. They've only cost us games, not helped win any. Nor have they helped the team be in every game this year, outside of both New England deabcles.

why should we give the coach credit for 7-7 when he could have gotten us to 10-4?

Also, you're forgetting that we have at least two losses- Denver and Dallas- that can be attributed DIRECTLY to coaching mistakes.

And as far as the NE games, Jauron's forte is having the team well prepared and he failed miserably for both of those games, not to mention the Dolphins game that we almost blew leading up to the 2nd NE game.

[Mudflap1]

This team has no business being 10-4 :rofl:, not this year.

[Mr. Pink]

why should we give the coach credit for 7-7 when he could have gotten us to 10-4?

Also, you're forgetting that we have at least two losses- Denver and Dallas- that can be attributed DIRECTLY to coaching mistakes.

And as far as the NE games, Jauron's forte is having the team well prepared and he failed miserably for both of those games, not to mention the Dolphins game that we almost blew leading up to the 2nd NE game.


And we just as easily could be 4-10 or worse.

We coulda lost the Skins game. The first Miami game. The Jets game when JP came in and threw up a prayer. Only two games we've won have been by sizable margins

We have a depleted roster, pretty much everywhere thanks to injury yet we're still at .500. This team has over achieved most people's expectations already. And that's with the injuries.

A team that faced the kind of adversity during the year that this team could have very easily folded the tents and packed it in back in week 6. But we didn't do that. Why? That one speaks volumes about the coaching.

[OpIv37]

And we just as easily could be 4-10 or worse.

We coulda lost the Skins game. The first Miami game. The Jets game when JP came in and threw up a prayer. Only two games we've won have been by sizable margins

We have a depleted roster, pretty much everywhere thanks to injury yet we're still at .500. This team has over achieved most people's expectations already. And that's with the injuries.

A team that faced the kind of adversity during the year that this team could have very easily folded the tents and packed it in back in week 6. But we didn't do that. Why? That one speaks volumes about the coaching.

the idiotic decisions in those two losses speaks volumes about the coaching.

The lack of in game adjustments speaks volumes about the coaching.

The horrendous, predictable offensive playcalling speaks volumes about the coaching.

The constant burning of a time out early in a half speaks volumes about the coaching, especially since we're usually in tight games.

The attempt to use four challenges in one game speaks volumes about the coaching (not to mention the play last year where he used a challenge and two time outs on the same play- Ivy League smarts, my ass).

The coach's win loss record both here and prior to coming here speaks volumes about the coaching.

Look, I get it. A bad coaching decision means another 3-4 years of mediocrity, and considering we've already had 8 years of mediocrity or worse, many of you don't want to admit that we're headed to more mediocrity. I don't like it any more than you do, but that doesn't change the fact that Jauron has never been anything other than a mediocre coach (particularly on game day), and hoping that he's going to do any better here is based on hope itself and not history.

[justasportsfan]

He gets credit for 7-7 because thats what our record is. You can argue how, where or why but thats what it is.

[OpIv37]

He gets credit for 7-7 because thats what our record is. You can argue how, where or why but thats what it is.

that's true- the debate is whether we should be better, worse or equal to 7-7.

[Mr. Pink]

the idiotic decisions in those two losses speaks volumes about the coaching.

The lack of in game adjustments speaks volumes about the coaching.

The horrendous, predictable offensive playcalling speaks volumes about the coaching.

The constant burning of a time out early in a half speaks volumes about the coaching, especially since we're usually in tight games.

The attempt to use four challenges in one game speaks volumes about the coaching (not to mention the play last year where he used a challenge and two time outs on the same play- Ivy League smarts, my ass).

The coach's win loss record both here and prior to coming here speaks volumes about the coaching.

Look, I get it. A bad coaching decision means another 3-4 years of mediocrity, and considering we've already had 8 years of mediocrity or worse, many of you don't want to admit that we're headed to more mediocrity. I don't like it any more than you do, but that doesn't change the fact that Jauron has never been anything other than a mediocre coach (particularly on game day), and hoping that he's going to do any better here is based on hope itself and not history.

So the idiotic coaching decisions in two games trumps the fact we've been in 9 other games all the way down to the wire basically? Jax we were still in with 3 minutes left when JP threw a pick and it turned into a runaway for them.

Playcalling, I'll give you has been dumbed down and is vanilla. Simple reason why. Exhibit A. JP, mentally dimwitted at the QB position, Exhibit B Trent, a rookie. In both cases, you generally don't open up the playbook to protect the player and team as a whole.

Timeouts? Partially the fault of the QB play...either by stupidity or inexperience.

The 4 challenges I can't argue, just outright bad coaching there.

He's 14-16 here with subpar NFL talent. It is what it is. The team has overachieved so far under his watch. Sad to say that overachieving for this team is still not playoff bound but facts are facts.

I didn't like Jauron coming in, I'm sure I was vocal on that. Thought he was a dime a dozen average coach. But in the two years here, albeit we haven't made the playoffs, he's shown to me that he can take what amounts to a JV team at many positions on the field to remain competitive. The team being competitive now with limited options is good, but imagine what the team will be like when there is legitimate options on this squad?

That's all I'm saying here. Is Dick coach of the year? No. Has Dick done a bad job in a couple situations? Definitely. Humans make mistakes, it's in their nature. Are there better coached in the NFL than Dick? Absolutely. But is Dick a liability to us during the football season? Absolutely not.

I maintain that if we had Mularkey as the HC now, we'd be looking at 3-11 as our record, easy. The team packed it under him before, so there's historical basis to make this assumption. This team has definitely not packed it in this year.

Is it short of the ultimate goal? You're damn right, however I do feel like we're going in the right direction.

[justasportsfan]

that's true- the debate is whether we should be better, worse or equal to 7-7.
woulda, coulda,shoulda. 7-7. That's quite an achievement. Ask the idiot MArshall Faulk.

:lolpoint: 3-13 . Faulk you.

[justasportsfan]

So the idiotic coaching decisions in two games trumps the fact we've been in 9 other games all the way down to the wire basically? Jax we were still in with 3 minutes left when JP threw a pick and it turned into a runaway for them.

Playcalling, I'll give you has been dumbed down and is vanilla. Simple reason why. Exhibit A. JP, mentally dimwitted at the QB position, Exhibit B Trent, a rookie. In both cases, you generally don't open up the playbook to protect the player and team as a whole.

Timeouts? Partially the fault of the QB play...either by stupidity or inexperience.

The 4 challenges I can't argue, just outright bad coaching there.

He's 14-16 here with subpar NFL talent. It is what it is. The team has overachieved so far under his watch. Sad to say that overachieving for this team is still not playoff bound but facts are facts.

I didn't like Jauron coming in, I'm sure I was vocal on that. Thought he was a dime a dozen average coach. But in the two years here, albeit we haven't made the playoffs, he's shown to me that he can take what amounts to a JV team at many positions on the field to remain competitive. The team being competitive now with limited options is good, but imagine what the team will be like when there is legitimate options on this squad?

That's all I'm saying here. Is Dick coach of the year? No. Has Dick done a bad job in a couple situations? Definitely. Humans make mistakes, it's in their nature. Are there better coached in the NFL than Dick? Absolutely. But is Dick a liability to us during the football season? Absolutely not.

I maintain that if we had Mularkey as the HC now, we'd be looking at 3-11 as our record, easy. The team packed it under him before, so there's historical basis to make this assumption. This team has definitely not packed it in this year.

Is it short of the ultimate goal? You're damn right, however I do feel like we're going in the right direction.


Whether JP or Trent lost us the games, Dick made the decisions of who to play. He gets the responsibility for whatever happened.

[OpIv37]

So the idiotic coaching decisions in two games trumps the fact we've been in 9 other games all the way down to the wire basically? Jax we were still in with 3 minutes left when JP threw a pick and it turned into a runaway for them.

Playcalling, I'll give you has been dumbed down and is vanilla. Simple reason why. Exhibit A. JP, mentally dimwitted at the QB position, Exhibit B Trent, a rookie. In both cases, you generally don't open up the playbook to protect the player and team as a whole.

Timeouts? Partially the fault of the QB play...either by stupidity or inexperience.

The 4 challenges I can't argue, just outright bad coaching there.

He's 14-16 here with subpar NFL talent. It is what it is. The team has overachieved so far under his watch. Sad to say that overachieving for this team is still not playoff bound but facts are facts.

I didn't like Jauron coming in, I'm sure I was vocal on that. Thought he was a dime a dozen average coach. But in the two years here, albeit we haven't made the playoffs, he's shown to me that he can take what amounts to a JV team at many positions on the field to remain competitive. The team being competitive now with limited options is good, but imagine what the team will be like when there is legitimate options on this squad?

That's all I'm saying here. Is Dick coach of the year? No. Has Dick done a bad job in a couple situations? Definitely. Humans make mistakes, it's in their nature. Are there better coached in the NFL than Dick? Absolutely. But is Dick a liability to us during the football season? Absolutely not.

I maintain that if we had Mularkey as the HC now, we'd be looking at 3-11 as our record, easy. The team packed it under him before, so there's historical basis to make this assumption. This team has definitely not packed it in this year.

Is it short of the ultimate goal? You're damn right, however I do feel like we're going in the right direction.

Fair enough. I agree we would have done worse under Mularkey, but admittedly that's a bit of a backhanded compliment. Being a better coach than Mularkey is like beating a 9 year old at basketball.

Of all the complaints I have about Jauron, the one thing that pisses me off the most is that he didn't do anything about the offensive playcalling all season long. If I can sit on my couch and see the play develop before it happened, you can be damn sure the other team's DC and the defenders on the field knew it too. Granted, this is Fairchild's doing- I just don't know why Jauron didn't make him change it up.

[Mr. Pink]

Fair enough. I agree we would have done worse under Mularkey, but admittedly that's a bit of a backhanded compliment. Being a better coach than Mularkey is like beating a 9 year old at basketball.

Of all the complaints I have about Jauron, the one thing that pisses me off the most is that he didn't do anything about the offensive playcalling all season long. If I can sit on my couch and see the play develop before it happened, you can be damn sure the other team's DC and the defenders on the field knew it too. Granted, this is Fairchild's doing- I just don't know why Jauron didn't make him change it up.


I agree that being better than Mularkey isn't a challenge. I'm sure you or I could do a better job on the sidelines to be honest.

Maybe at times they tried to change it up, and the QBs couldn't perform those changes? I honestly think neither QB on our roster as of today has the experience or mental faculties to run a complete NFL offense. With Trent, it's obvious that will come with time.

You're limited in what you can do when your QB has no play recognition, defense recognition, blitz recognition...you're calling easy dumbed down plays to put the team in the best possible chance to succeed.

Then there's Trent, sure he's smart, but he's probably gone from a 20 page offensive playbook to a 100 page offensive playbook. I'm guesstimating there to be sure. But an NFL playbook is much bigger than a college playbook. It takes time to adjust to the differences in the playbook and then process what you read/practice in a live game situation. So again, the playbook is limited down to the plays the staff thinks we're gonna be most successful at. Again putting our team first and in the best possible chance to succeed.

When you're in 11 of 14 games with 3 minutes and/or less to go, you're putting your team in a position to succeed. When you do that, it comes down to someone making a play. We've gotten that play sometimes....Lindell FG vs Wash and we've blown that play before Onside Kick vs Dallas.

Maybe you disagree with me on the options of the playbook when you factor in who the QB is. But how can you expect someone with little to no NFL experience run a fullblown NFL offense? Or how can you expect someone who can't even read a backside blitz at the line to run a fullblown NFL offense?

[OpIv37]

I agree that being better than Mularkey isn't a challenge. I'm sure you or I could do a better job on the sidelines to be honest.

Maybe at times they tried to change it up, and the QBs couldn't perform those changes? I honestly think neither QB on our roster as of today has the experience or mental faculties to run a complete NFL offense. With Trent, it's obvious that will come with time.

You're limited in what you can do when your QB has no play recognition, defense recognition, blitz recognition...you're calling easy dumbed down plays to put the team in the best possible chance to succeed.

Then there's Trent, sure he's smart, but he's probably gone from a 20 page offensive playbook to a 100 page offensive playbook. I'm guesstimating there to be sure. But an NFL playbook is much bigger than a college playbook. It takes time to adjust to the differences in the playbook and then process what you read/practice in a live game situation. So again, the playbook is limited down to the plays the staff thinks we're gonna be most successful at. Again putting our team first and in the best possible chance to succeed.

When you're in 11 of 14 games with 3 minutes and/or less to go, you're putting your team in a position to succeed. When you do that, it comes down to someone making a play. We've gotten that play sometimes....Lindell FG vs Wash and we've blown that play before Onside Kick vs Dallas.

Maybe you disagree with me on the options of the playbook when you factor in who the QB is. But how can you expect someone with little to no NFL experience run a fullblown NFL offense? Or how can you expect someone who can't even read a backside blitz at the line to run a fullblown NFL offense?

well, it comes down to whether it's the player's fault for not being able to read the backside blitz or the coach's fault for not teaching the player to read the backside blitz?

With Edwards you can say it's lack of experience. With JP- maybe he's just too dumb or maybe the coaches never taught him properly. We have no way of knowing.

[njsue]

why should we give the coach credit for 7-7 when he could have gotten us to 10-4?

Also, you're forgetting that we have at least two losses- Denver and Dallas- that can be attributed DIRECTLY to coaching mistakes.

And as far as the NE games, Jauron's forte is having the team well prepared and he failed miserably for both of those games, not to mention the Dolphins game that we almost blew leading up to the 2nd NE game.

Guess who the QB was during many of the loses?????

[raphael120]

It comes down to this.

Exhibit #1 - Offense ranked 30th in the league.
Exhibit #2 - This was our ranking last year too.
Exhibit #3 - Fairchild is running our offense. We all know Jauron lets his coordinators pretty much have all control over their respective positions.
Exhibit #4- Who hired Fairchild? Jauron.

Just because he did better than Mularkey doesn't give Jauron a pass.

It's very disturbing that many people on here try to justify current things going on by comparing it to the piss poor results of seasons past. Just because we don't totally suck like in the past doesn't mean it's ok to still kinda suck.

While I agree that we are headed in the right direction, and I'll be even happier if we win out and get to 9-7 (especially since im oging to the Giants game), I think we really had some questionable decisions on gameday, and for hiring Fairchild, and in game adjustments, time outs, play calls, and also resignings of Kelsey and Schobel to those huge contracts.

It is encouraging though that we'll have the same coach for 3 straight years which is better than what we've been used to, continuity is good, but it better yield results. New coaches have turned around franchises in shorter time, but I'll also give Jauron the benefit of the doubt that had we not have lost all of those starters we could have won a couplke more of those games we played and how well we did with our current roster of nobodies. But at the same time we dropped those 2 games we should have won at the beginning of the season that right now, if we had won them, we'd be sitting in the playoffs most likely. So there are positives and negatives.

The true test will be next year. With the production we got from our depleted roster, and with the obvious lack of talent at WR, D-line, center, LB, with all of our draft picks, all the money under the cap, there is absolutely NO reason why we don't make the playoffs next year, and no reason why we don't fill all of our remaining needs this offseason.

If we don't make the playoffs next year I will consider Jauron a mistake and also a waste of another 3 years of "rebuilding".

[Elminster]

It comes down to this.

Exhibit #1 - Offense ranked 30th in the league.
Exhibit #2 - This was our ranking last year too.
Exhibit #3 - Fairchild is running our offense. We all know Jauron lets his coordinators pretty much have all control over their respective positions.
Exhibit #4- Who hired Fairchild? Jauron.

Just because he did better than Mularkey doesn't give Jauron a pass.

It's very disturbing that many people on here try to justify current things going on by comparing it to the piss poor results of seasons past. Just because we don't totally suck like in the past doesn't mean it's ok to still kinda suck.

While I agree that we are headed in the right direction, and I'll be even happier if we win out and get to 9-7 (especially since im oging to the Giants game), I think we really had some questionable decisions on gameday, and for hiring Fairchild, and in game adjustments, time outs, play calls, and also resignings of Kelsey and Schobel to those huge contracts.

It is encouraging though that we'll have the same coach for 3 straight years which is better than what we've been used to, continuity is good, but it better yield results. New coaches have turned around franchises in shorter time, but I'll also give Jauron the benefit of the doubt that had we not have lost all of those starters we could have won a couplke more of those games we played and how well we did with our current roster of nobodies. But at the same time we dropped those 2 games we should have won at the beginning of the season that right now, if we had won them, we'd be sitting in the playoffs most likely. So there are positives and negatives.

The true test will be next year. With the production we got from our depleted roster, and with the obvious lack of talent at WR, D-line, center, LB, with all of our draft picks, all the money under the cap, there is absolutely NO reason why we don't make the playoffs next year, and no reason why we don't fill all of our remaining needs this offseason.

If we don't make the playoffs next year I will consider Jauron a mistake and also a waste of another 3 years of "rebuilding".
7-7. We shall see if we're better or worse than that next year, for sure. There are reasons for concern...and reasons for optimism.

[Philagape]

The verdict will be in in 2008

[Turf]

I will not deny that Jauron is a great players coach. He get's the players ready and obviously they react very well to him. For that he deserves a ton of credit.
His downside I won't bother rehashing. But some very simple play calling has directly cost us a couple games if not more.

[justasportsfan]

His downside I won't bother rehashing. .
X and O's expecially on the offensive side of the ball. He's seems totally dependent on his OC.