MRW

What else could you call it? I am extremely curious how the Bills are going to try to entice people to games next year. After an off-season to start missing the game again, I may change my mind on this, but right now I have no intention of watching another game coached by Dick Jauron.

If he wants to be on a roster next year he's not going to be that picky. I've been disappointed by Losman's play this year; I was a fan, but he seems to have lost his strengths and not improved his weaknesses in his time on the bench. If he wants to have a career at this point he needs to do some rehabilitation work. He should be looking for a team that can do well mentoring QBs, IMO. At any rate, the state of QBing in the league is weak enough that Losman will definitely be able to get a backup job; I don't see him getting more than that unless it's a chance to compete for a starting position with a desperate team (it would be a mistake for him to do that though).

I was not a big fan of Flutie's, and I was especially irritated by him getting credit for a playoff bid that happened because of the stellar defense, but I remember thinking that starting Johnson against that tough pass rush of the Titans, with an offensive line that was bad to begin with and was ridiculously dinged up on top of that, may not have been the wisest choice. Flutie had his own deficiencies but he would've avoided the negative plays that Johnson had at the beginning of the game. I wasn't opposed to switching quarterbacks, in fact I thought it would be awesome if they played each of them to take advantage of their strengths (put RJ in against a team like the Colts that could be a shootout, Flutie against a good pass-rushing team, etc.). Still, all that being said, RJ didn't cost them that game.

Why does this debate carry the same vibe as "Wade doesn't wear a headset" to me? Sorry, anti-deferring people, but you've chosen to seize on the least consequential, least controversial decision Jauron is making. BADOL has it exactly right; please stop conflating "get the ball first" with "score first". They're not the same thing.

Why is this discussion being made in a vacuum, as though Jauron is the only coach deciding to defer all the time? Week after week I watch games and without an exception that I can think of, the winning team defers. Like I said, it's just an inane criticism. If you want to criticize Jauron, how about focusing on the things that competent coaches do that he doesn't?

Please stop conflating legitimate criticisms of Jauron with this BS. Look around the league.

Wow. I thought I'd seen everything. I haven't thought much of Cameron ever since I saw his horrible playcalling against NE in the playoffs in his last year as OC. The Chargers had no receivers, TOmlinson is averaging over 5 yards a carry, so what's his strategy? Bombs away!

The biggest thing for me is criticizing Jauron over deferring just seems so... inane. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a coach who wouldn't defer, and yet people are asking questions about this? Not about poor overall preparation, terrible challenges, and wasted timeouts?

Does Jauron have to kill someone for you to think he should go?

I guess so.

Strange how we've seen different games. The ones I recall featured Lynch frequently dragging 2 or 3 defenders forward for a 2 or 3 yard gain after they broke through into the backfield. Oddly enough, now that the offensive line is opening holes, Lynch is taking advantage of it.

So... your argument FOR Millen is that maybe he was a puppet GM in Detroit?

Well, maybe you're going to get your wish now... Although how you post this after Lynch has posted 3 solid games in a row is beyond me. Jackson's a great back to have on the team, but I think you'll see very quickly that he's not a feature back.

Yeah I don't get it. I keep seeing some form of this argument - sure Jauron's not a very good coach, but will the team really get better if they replace him? And maybe the light will go on for him and we'll have the next Jeff Fisher/Bill Belichick on our hands! He's been a coach for 8 years in this league. We've seen the decisions he makes. He is thoroughly outclassed by the coaching in the division, let alone for the entire conference or league. There's no reason to stick with a perpetual 7-9 coach just because you fear that switching may lead to worse results. It makes sense to stay the course if you think that it's a good course, but I don't know why anyone would think that at this point.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say teams "don't accept" 6th round misses. What happens when their 6th round pick doesn't pan out (as happens all the time)? Do they fire their GMs? Or just give them a stern talking to?

Time outs are huge. HUGE! If you can't agree with that then I don't think we have anything to discuss. Losing time outs early affects the entire end to a close game. Here's the thing about your defense of Jauron. I guarantee you, every loser coach that ever coached in this league has had adversity they could point to that could be a partial explanation for this record. But at the end of the day, they're still losers. Should Detroit never fire a coach?

Dude, what are you looking for exactly? Does he need to sneak into team meetings and record Dick Jauron doing crappy game preparation? At a certain point results speak for themselves. Do you think Dave Wannstedt and Norv Turner got fair shakes at their previous jobs, or did they just need more time? Sorry, you're not likely to get a document that gives unequivocal proof that Jauron is a mediocre coach at best. But between poor decisions in the red zone, terrible end game clock management, and burning time outs like they're going out of style, I think there's enough to show his deficiencies - unless you've decided to simply rationalize everything away.

Who promoted Schonert? I'm sorry, but I think you're just trying to trick yourself into thinking things could get better. But Jauron is looking like a poor man's Dave Wannstedt to me, and I don't see the sense in sticking with stability to get to 7-9 every year. There's always the chance that the next guy will be a disaster, but Jauron has shown the apex of his coaching ability.

With good reason.

I think we're heading for those times. This continued losing has to have DJ on the verge of losing the locker room. And it wouldn't surprise me to see the team completely quit on him, which means if he's back next year we're in for rocky times.

Sadly, they'd never do it. But also, wouldn't they run into problems with the Rooney Rule? I don't know if you could get people in for interviews and such before the end of the season.

The Lions do that a lot. When they played the Packers they were down by two TDs I think, then rallied to take a lead in the second half, then ended up losing by 21. I think you're underestimating just how bad this Lions team is. Now that they've traded Roy Williams, who do they even have playing on offense?

I feel OK (not great - but OK) about our players at DT. If the opportunity arises to go after a top-tier player in FA, or there is a Stroud or Jenkins type dangled as trade bait, I'd be happy to see them go after it, but I'm far more concerned about the play at DE. I feel like, right now, with competent to good play in the middle, the DEs are still not getting it done. So while I wouldn't be opposed to bringing in another quality DT, I hope it wouldn't come at the expense of urgently needed upgrades at DE and C.

So why are you here? I don't see you doing a whole lot to engage in meaningful dialogue.