One Fan's View: Jauron-gone

by Kevin Shenoy

I always wondered what a Bills championship would feel like and upon hearing news that they relieved Jauron I think I’m one step closer to knowing how it feels like. And it feels good. I am looking to buy a case of cigars and hand them out to everyone I know. I want to hug every Bills fan. I want to write a thank you note to Ralph Wilson. I want to enjoy this moment for at least a day before I have to start thinking, “now what?”

I had said to friends that firing Jauron was necessary for two reasons. The first is that it was inhumane to have him be ripped on week in and week out. Surely he was to blame, but he seems like a nice guy. He shouldn’t have had to go through a second season of this.

The second (more important) reason was that it was the ultimate F.U. to the fans. The longer this took, the more it felt like that the Front Office powers-that-be were standing next to a black cauldron of doom stirring frogs feet, excess cap room, Toronto ticket sales and a pinch of Monday night football viewership into the steaming pot and trying to figure a way to keep Jauron employed through the contract. It felt like they were still buying this false hope that we were close to something special and keep costs low.

Now that the change has been made, it feels like maybe they are going to swing for the fences. There is absolutely no reason to believe that because the Buffalo News listed all the coaches we’ve had, and only Saban and Knox were big hires. And that was before the prices increased dramatically. The odds are we’ll be left with another dysfunctional team, but tonight we dance!

With a plethora of big name coaches out there and equal amount of bad teams looking to make a coaching change, this is the time to run like a hot girl in panties in a horror film away from Dick Jauron and staff. Except drop the phone, don’t look back, and run with your knees high. I get the sense that the Front office realizes that the murder is in the house right now. Let’s see if they keep running.

I’ll truly miss the numerous botched in-game decisions, the bland post game interviews, and the offenses that can’t pick up 1 yard when it desperately needs it. But I get the sense in the next 7 weeks, I’ll still see a poorly put together roster, too many injuries, not enough intensity, and late game collapses. This leads to the conclusion that they’ll need to change the players and scouts as well. I hope this is part of the big change.

At the very least, the Bills are no longer predictable. Prior to the firing, I had written how I saw the Bills winning the next two games just to make us lose draft status and falsely make us think we could hit the playoffs. Now I think anything’s possible. Fewell could surprise us and win out and change everything. But more likely, he’ll take us straight to the bottom just like this team needs.

Finally, today was a good day to be a Bills fan again!

DVD Extras:

• [b]Thank you Bud Adams – Unless I hear otherwise, I am guessing that his two birds made it clear that the Bills were a joke to Ralph Wilson. Thank you Bud Adams and special thanks to your powder blue leisure suit and white dress shoes.
  
• Carucci news – Vic Carucci mentioned in an online chat and on the radio last week that he had a feeling that the Bills are going big name GM/coach. This news spread like wild fire. For me, it was like they already signed a big name GM/coach. I was ecstatic. I got the sense that most fans are excited from the few emails I received as well the message board mania. Now that Jauron is out, I can’t tell if this is part of a well organized set of changes that the team is making, or if they are praying this is enough to sell out the stadium next year. I’m thinking more changes are in store. Look at the Bills shop online. Edwards’ jersey is the only one discounted to $72. Everyone else is at $80. And that happened about 30 minutes before the Jauron announcement. Please tell me that they actually put a model in place that they are trying to follow and not just making random changes as they see fit.
  
• Fitting way to can him – This guy let Turk go two weeks before the season and Wallker one week before the season even though that decision should have been made much earlier. In similar vein, the right time to let Jauron go was during the bye week, but they did it this week. Karma?
  
• The declined penalty - How did Jauron watch Bironas miss a 60 yarder by 5 yards in the closing parts of the 2nd quarter and fail to do the math less than 30 minutes later? He should have realized that Bironas was going to boom a 51 yarder with 4 yards to spare. I knew that. You knew that. The Stadium knew that.
  
• 100-0? - My brain just looks at the fact the Pats beat the Titans 59-0 and we let the Titans put up 41. Does that mean we are going to lose to the Pats 100-0?
  
• 4th and 2 – In this awful Bills season, my new passion is to just cheer on Pats losses. As a result, that Colts Pats game was the greatest game ever. I know this won’t happen, but I hope that that moment sends Belichick back to his Cleveland Browns ways. That everything he tries to do is a disaster. It won’t happen, but it’s a beautiful dream. Second point, everyone was so stunned that he made that call, but I was surprised by something else. He was the coach who made it popular to take the safety to win the game a few years ago. How did he not let Addai into the endzone with 50 seconds on the clock? He let them run it down to 17 seconds. Two blunders by Belichick. Call me McDonalds, because I’m lovin’ it.
  
• Facebook Draft - It is a sad day when I am thoroughly convinced that I could field a more competitive 53 man roster by holding a draft of just my Facebook friends. I see more heart, more desire, more intelligence and, in some cases, more talent with my pals than I do on the Bills sidelines. That being said, I almost want to facebook friend Donte Whitner and then not draft him at all.
  
• Offensively Bland - I went into this game with the desire to really look at the Bills offense. Here is what I noted. The Bills used 2 formations the entire time (excluding the wildcat). They are either 2 WR, 2 TE, and 1RB or 3WR, 2RB. Note that both formations don’t use motion unless the TE is in motion. And when that happens, they throw the TE bubble pass for 4 yards. Obviously since they only show us the Tecmo Bowl camera angle, I have no idea what routes are being run, but apparently no one is open because Trent had time a couple times but elected not to throw the ball. Question is now that the Jauron philosophy is out, does AVP open things up much more to the players liking.
  
• Roster mismanagement – If the Bills never, ever run a set with more than 3 WR’s, then WHY IN GOD’S NAME DO THEY CARRY 7 WR on the roster?????
  
• TO and his 3rd grade class – I’m not a teacher, but when you have a kid with a bad attitude potentially wearing off on the other kids, don’t you throw that kid out of the class room? You can’t possibly let him get the other kids off track can you? If Dick Jauron had one ounce of leadership in his body, he would have benched TO before he benched Edwards. Yes, TO is the more talented player, but he’s not even trying out there. And I’m not even an anti-TO guy. I feel awful for him. He had no idea that the Bills were this bad. But you got to still try. You can’t sulk.
  
• Benching Edwards – I have no idea why he did this, but I liked it. Because it finally showed that Jauron was getting desperate. He wasn’t just standing by loyalties. He knew time was running out. He even said as much in his Monday press conference. When asked about the OL and Levitre playing LT, Jauron said something to the effect that he knew the line was going to be good in time, but he didn’t have a lot of time. This desperation should have been out 2 years ago.
  
• Piece of Zhitnik – Poz had perhaps one of the worst games you can imagine. My sophomore year geometry teacher would have passed out and died had she seen the bad angles he took to almost every tackle. He’s not good in coverage, he’s not good as a spy on a fast QB. That being said, I don’t think he’s a bust. He is Shane Conlan. Conlan wouldn’t have been much of anything without a stud in Cornelius Bennett in the LB corp. I can’t imagine what Conlan’s production would have been if Marv had decided that he was going to have Mark Kelso play LB for a game because we didn’t have any LB depth. Poz is a piece of the puzzle, but he isn’t a superstar. The Bills have to get that LB who can do it all. Once they get that guy paired with Poz, then they’ll see better production from Poz.
  
• Am I the dumbest fan alive – Am I the only one who thinks that Maybin should be playing as an emergency LB over Bryan Scott? Get the number 11 pick on the field damn it. He’s bigger than Scott, he probably get through on blitzs better than Scott. He probably makes Poz a little more helpful.
  
• 3rd and a long 1 – Why to send Edwards over the top in a tie game? At that point it was 17-17, and the Titans just had a decent drive stopped short from their own stupid penalties. We just got the ball and ran two nice plays for 4 and 5 yards each. Why rush that play out there? The following drive was a TD for the Titans. Game over.
  
• Fisher high step? – On the first INT returned for a TD, did you see Fisher highstep down the sidelines? Their coach and owner did more taunting that their players. What the hell kind of world do we live in?
  
• The Trent Edwards INT – Nicely done, Trent. Go ahead and throw the same pass 3 times in a row. Who possibly would jump a route on the third time that the exact same play is being run? My guess is that he threw to the wrong read and that’s why he got the hook.
  
• ST still at it – They took a handful of penalties for the 9th straight time. Hell of a unit they got there.

Kevin Shenoy can be reached at binaural02@hotmail.com. Keep the comments coming. You’re input has been far more enjoyable that the actual season.