RIP: Dick Jauron

[BUFFALOBART]

Nice guy. Couldn't Coach his way out of a paper bag. 

[boater]

74.. too young to go. RIP coach.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

RIP

[quincy]

RIP

 

As a newer fan I don't remember him but I didn't know he was a coach of the year in 2001.

 

Dick Jauron, former Bears, Bills head coach and NFL Coach of the Year winner, dies at 74

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I was probably his number 1 defender and his teams played some awful football to watch. But read those rosters he had and it’s absolutely amazing they would win 7 games. I fully believe he would be a SB winning coach if he ever had Allen. Great guy and prayers to his family.  RIP Coach. 

I was a big defender, too.  His teams played with discipline and character.  I liked that.  

 

However, I don't think he was built to be a winning head coach.  He was too conservative, even for that era.  He just didn't like to take chances.  I can't imagine him ever getting out of that beloved 4-3.  He was McDermott with less imagination, and that's saying something. 

 

Loved the guy.  Committed, hard working, high quality man.  

 

RIP

[Kincaid Kool-Aid]

Sad to hear. One of the poster children of the drought years, but seemed to be a genuinely good guy, and as others have said, its not like he had much to work with during his time here. 

 

During training camp one year I'm at a Barnes and Noble and look over and there is he is by himself, totally unassuming over by the checkout desk trying on some reading glasses. I went over to say hi quick, and he couldn't have been nicer. RIP and condolences to his family.

Edited 2 hours ago by Kincaid Kool-Aid

[The Frankish Reich]

1 hour ago, Roundybout said:

I don’t quite get the hate for him. Those teams were devoid of talent. 

Right.

The headline should be something like: "Dick Jauron, who took teams with the likes of J.P. Losman and Trent Edwards at QB to back-to-back-to-back 7-9 seasons, dead at the age of 74."

[May Day 10]

That's sad.  The depths of the drought years.  Good football man though

[BADOLBILZ]

37 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I was a big defender, too.  His teams played with discipline and character.  I liked that.  

 

However, I don't think he was built to be a winning head coach.  He was too conservative, even for that era.  He just didn't like to take chances.  I can't imagine him ever getting out of that beloved 4-3.  He was McDermott with less imagination, and that's saying something. 

 

Loved the guy.  Committed, hard working, high quality man.  

 

RIP

 

 

Yeah the best thing you can say about his tenure is that he cleaned up a sloppy mess of unwatchable football that Mike Mularkey created in 2005.   Which was no small task.   A lot of terrible personnel decisions were made in the year prior to his arrival AND by Levy when he did arrive so that roster needed to play the only way he knew how........not to lose.  

 

The ultra-conservative style got the best out of JP Losman and allowed the defense to be opportunistic.   The pass defense ranked 7th in 2006.   As I said then though, after that first year he should have been fired before the commitment to mediocrity set in.  And with he and Levy as the braintrust the roster just got worse.  So instead, his final couple seasons in Buffalo were probably the low point of the franchise for a lot of us.   The peak of their irrelevance and it took 5 years to fix the damage he, Levy and Russ had done to the roster by prioritizing non-premium positions in the draft, letting good talent walk or acquiescing to trade demands and trading away the only HoF talent they had during the drought(Peters).  

 

Once in a blue moon a team can play not to lose and have a winning record but you need an easy schedule and a ton of bounces.   It ultimately doesn't work against good teams which is why his Bears went one-and-done after entering the playoffs as the #1 seed in the NFC in his only winning season.    To some extent this 2024 Bills offense was a play-not-to-lose offense but with a great QB........and we saw the diminishing returns from them in the playoffs.

 

First and foremost we should remember Dick Jauron was a GREAT NFL player.   I'm sure he was a fine coach and a great guy to organize a mess for a year but unfortunately his style as a HC maximized bad talent and minimized good talent so the ceiling for him was very low.   No way he ever wins a SB then or now.  

 

RIP Dick and thanks for 2006

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by BADOLBILZ

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

2 hours ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I was probably his number 1 defender and his teams played some awful football to watch. But read those rosters he had and it’s absolutely amazing they would win 7 games. I fully believe he would be a SB winning coach if he ever had Allen. Great guy and prayers to his family.  RIP Coach. 

I am there with you. I was a Jauron guy. He was a guy that could squeeze 7 or 8 wins out of a roster than with 1-win talent. Guys always played hard for him. 

[The Frankish Reich]

QBs who started more than a couple games for Dick Jauron with the Bears, Lions (briefly) and Bills:

- Cade McNown

- Jim Miller

- Shane Matthews

- Chris Chandler

- Kordell Stewart (at age 31)

- Rex Grossman

- Joey Harrington

- JP Losman

- Trent Edwards

- Ryan Fitzpatrick

 

Imagine what we'd think of Sean McD if we'd drafted Darnold and then had a revolving door of Trubiskys and Case Keenums as starting QBs ... some coaches get lucky, some don't.

[extrahammer]

Damn, I'm surprised he passed before Levy, with all respect. 

[Einstein]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

However, I don't think he was built to be a winning head coach.  He was too conservative, even for that era.  He just didn't like to take chances.  I can't imagine him ever getting out of that beloved 4-3.  He was McDermott with less imagination, and that's saying something. 

Agreed.

We are talking about a guy that would punt from the 35.

[RobbRiddick]

This is really sad. I made a lot of Jauron jokes, and I have to admit the day they hired him I basically wrote off at least 3 years there and then. But there was a reason they hired him, I think he saw him as someone who was able to come in and give stability while gaining the respect pf players. Apparently he was really liked by the players. 

Edited 1 hour ago by RobbRiddick

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

35 minutes ago, extrahammer said:

Damn, I'm surprised he passed before Levy, with all respect. 

sounds like it was cancer. 

[sunshynman]

RIP. 

 

Great person by all accounts. 

 

Terrible head coach.

 

Some very memorable one-liners.

"We punted well" 

[stuvian]

He got a 13 win season with Jim Miller at qb. Probably his finest moment. 

[Rockpile233]

RIP Coach. I remember being hard on him, but now that I’ve seen real QB play feel kind of bad expecting him to win a Super Bowl with Trent Edwards.

[Chandler#81]

R.I.P,  Coach. Thank you for your efforts.

[Figster]

 

 

A Coach that truly loved his players, win or lose.

 

R.l.P.