Apology thread for Dick Jauron

[Pyrite Gal]

I feel good that I never ragged on him like some who have loudly claimed that he brings nothing to the HC job or they have claimed his Coach of the Year honor was an aberration. However, though I have been supportive of Jauron, I must admit I had my doubts.

 

However, though is still to early to bow down and yell we are not worthy (he has to lead the team to the playoffs and actually deep into the playoffs before he deserves that) I think that the way the game played out to day and after two seasons I think any reasonable person who claims to know football needs to be impressed with what he has led the team to at this point.

 

Again, it ain't over til its over and the proof still needs to be in the pudding of making the playoffs before a full throated hosanna is justified. However, I think those who have taken the time publicly to decry Jauron or to offer up his previous achievements as being meaningless should be willing to publicly state that their past rants appear to be wrong.

 

To date, I think Jauron honestly deserves a lot of credit and a smart person should be willing to acknowledge:

 

1. The simple fact is he took over a 5-11 teams and produced a 7-9 record with them. It is not an undoable thing to oversee improved individual performances on an unproductive team, but the simple fact is they only were inadequate in terms of results his first year but they improved from horrendous to inadequate and a person with any football knowledge should see that.

 

In fact, the improvement in record coincided with a clear change in attitude from the hubub of the end of the TD reign of error and Marv also deserves plaudits for overseeing a draft which not only produced starters from second day picks but these starters produced an improved record under Jauron.

 

The record improvement coincided with other measurables of better game control and decision making like beginning to build a quality record of winning ref challenges.

 

2. One could easily become so focused on the stats that the production of yet another inadequate 7-9 record could be judged as the team not improving from a level of inadequacy. Yet, the simple fact again is that this team led the NFL in players on the IR and they STILL managed to produce the same record. The team is clearly working with and off of what the TD reign of error left them, but the Bills again showed clear signs of taking the best and leaving the rest as the team not only made big moves getting rid of highly promoted team leaders like Fletch, former Pro Bowler TKO and the deserving of praise for coming back from a devastating collegiate injury but still clearly an idiot McGahee.

 

The actual events gave every sign of making recitations of Jauron's past spotty record with the troubled Bears and bad record with the bad Lions look more suspect than a sense of Jauron being an honestly indictable failure.

 

3. Its way too early to declare victory with the impressive 2-0 record and eminently winnable next 3 games we face. However, it is not too early for those who were so bold as to declare Jauron a clear bad choice and a failure to begin to retract those remarks.

 

Today's game was a nail-biter always and downright bad as a Bills fan to watch as we got manhandled and outfoxed in the 3rd quarter. However, the final result showed the correctness in terms of producing results of the unflashy and often boring Jauron style of encouraging competition and hanging around and hanging around and then pouncing at the right moment.

 

Jauron still has a lot to prove. He also clearly had some things he did not do well in his first two years. However, the biggest of those was he had never hired an OC who could make it work (we got so lucky Fairchild got promoted out of his OC job because my sense is that loyalty for his less than but close to adequate performance would have kept him here). However, though it is too early to draw final conclusions, I like the game Schonert calls and has designed (a big difference between Fairchild and Schonert is that the pass routes are designed in a manner which gets quick separation and takes advantage of the Evans/Parrish speed).

 

One hopes that the Schonert O will continue to grow and be productive and that Jauron will finally have found his offensive genii. When one can still play the conservative ball which Jauron does well and the offense is good enough to hang around and finally win on the road and to dust teams at home it will be very good.

 

Many of us hoped Jauron had it in him and the sign are clearly there that in fact he does have it in him. I hope that those who declared us DDOOOMMEEDDD will take this opportunity to not only hope that he does pass the test finally in the future and that they will apologize for publicly calling him out in the past. While he has not proven yet that he is a football king he has certainly given satisfactory proof that he did not deserve the negative conclusions some made about him.

[ax4782]

On this one, I'm totally with you and always have been. I'm still waiting for all the folks who hated on Jauron all offseason long and said he would not put a quality product on the field (yes that's you krazykat, sisyphean bills, etc.) to come out and at least admit that thus far, the offseason moves have proved solid, and that the coaching has been worlds better since the OC switch and the fact that there is truly better talent on the team the DJ has to work with than he has ever had. Sure, they'll probably say that DJ will find a way to screw it up, but from what I've seen, this is a different and much better team than what we started with last year. That being said, we may need to wait a while before any of those folks is willing to come out and say they were wrong.

[Pyrite Gal]

On this one, I'm totally with you and always have been. I'm still waiting for all the folks who hated on Jauron all offseason long and said he would not put a quality product on the field (yes that's you krazykat, sisyphean bills, etc.) to come out and at least admit that thus far, the offseason moves have proved solid, and that the coaching has been worlds better since the OC switch and the fact that there is truly better talent on the team the DJ has to work with than he has ever had. Sure, they'll probably say that DJ will find a way to screw it up, but from what I've seen, this is a different and much better team than what we started with last year. That being said, we may need to wait a while before any of those folks is willing to come out and say they were wrong.

I think some of those who were most vocal in declaring Jauron a loser were noted by many of us because they were quite clear and vocal in doing this. The fact that they may choose not to acknowledge this will be noticeable the next time they are stating something as an indisputable fact.

 

I for one am happy to see a free pass given to anyone who admits they were wrong about something (and its not for me individually- I'm not that bright- to give them a dispensation its for the TSW community as a whole). However, its the folks who simply rant against one Bills and then move on to the next one without any acknowledgment they were wrong that I find silliest.

[1billsfan]

I think some of those who were most vocal in declaring Jauron a loser were noted by many of us because they were quite clear and vocal in doing this. The fact that they may choose not to acknowledge this will be noticeable the next time they are stating something as an indisputable fact.

 

I for one am happy to see a free pass given to anyone who admits they were wrong about something (and its not for me individually- I'm not that bright- to give them a dispensation its for the TSW community as a whole). However, its the folks who simply rant against one Bills and then move on to the next one without any acknowledgment they were wrong that I find silliest.

 

 

Enough with the apologies. Being one of the most ardent haters of Dick Jauron I certainly DO NOT feel the need to apologize to him. In fact, I like to think the haters had a hand in this new Bills change of philosophy with a much more attacking style. Jauron was smart enough to realize that a repeat of the ultra-conservativism of '07 would end up costing him his job. I have nothing but praise and respect for him as long as he does not dig back into that crusty old loser conservative style. Even if the Bills had lost today's game I would not have had a problem with him. How much more fun is it to watch a team that actually throws passes on 1st and 2nd downs to backs and receivers, and throws passes into the endzone. That was all we haters were asking for and I haven't been this pleased with the Bills in about eight or nine years. Keep up the good work Dick, I think you're on to something big!

[BADOLBILZ]

Where are the apology threads for McCargo, Josh Reed and all the other key contributors to the perfect season?

 

Seriously, it's two games in. Jauron has a LONG history of losing. Lombardi he is not. That said, he's no worse than Wade Phillips or Norv Turner. Give them talent and the right circumstances and they can win some games and even get you into the playoffs.

 

Things are falling into place for the Bills this season. They've had games versus two beat-up teams(Seattle lost at home to lowly SF today, btw). They have a favorable schedule. The top 4 teams in the conference coming into the season, NE/SD/Indy/Jax are 3-5 combined. They have suffered injuries to a number of key players, and all appear to be the worse for it. Even if the Bills don't tackle better or pass the ball downfield consistently they may still compete for a playoff spot.

[Pyrite Gal]

Where are the apology threads for McCargo, Josh Reed and all the other key contributors to the perfect season?

 

Seriously, it's two games in. Jauron has a LONG history of losing. Lombardi he is not. That said, he's no worse than Wade Phillips or Norv Turner. Give them talent and the right circumstances and they can win some games and even get you into the playoffs.

 

Things are falling into place for the Bills this season. They've had games versus two beat-up teams(Seattle lost at home to lowly SF today, btw). They have a favorable schedule. The top 4 teams in the conference coming into the season, NE/SD/Indy/Jax are 3-5 combined. They have suffered injuries to a number of key players, and all appear to be the worse for it. Even if the Bills don't tackle better or pass the ball downfield consistently they may still compete for a playoff spot.

You are right that Jauron is not Lombardi, but the issue I see is that some seemed to insist he was Rick Kotite. I think that those who loudly or continually declared him a stiff as an HC have in fact been proven to be flat out wrong.

 

IMHO he is no Bill Parcells who can improve or even win with a bad team (we saw this in Detroit for Jauron) I am not saying he is.

 

I am saying that those who seemed to say he was a bad HC or a perennial loser appear wrong in simply discounting his 13-3 Coach of the Year effort as:

 

1. He directed a 5-11 Bills team to a 7-9 record the next year (not a winner and no playoffs so an inadequate result IMHO but clearly improved in terms of performance).

2. He directed the team to another 7-9 record which with a superficial look may be counted as simply staying in the same place, but the fact this was accomplished while the team was unfortunately leading the NFL in players on the IR list hints at a better performance than merely holding his own. Overall, when one also considers the HCs key role in drafting decisions and overseeing teaching of youngsters, I think Jauron deserves a lot of credit for the two quality drafts under Marv and the third one they just pulled off.

3. The two wins are way to early to declare this season a success, but it is not too early to write the obituary on past comments which asserted that Jauron was a bad choice with no past record of success.

 

His Coach of the Year honors and a rep he has built as a level-headed team builder are a past record of success. His two 7-9 records with teams with huge failings inherited from the TD reign of error do not prove he is a great coach Lombardi or Parcells. However, these two seasons and two games of frighteningly boring wins do prove to me that those who went over the top in the other direction and claimed his hiring was a disaster were wrong wrong wrong.

 

That's all I am saying.

 

It looks like he is about to get an extension and I think this is a very good thing.

 

Do you and others who have ragged on him?

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

the TD reign of error

I like it!

 

 

 

Good post, PG. I think its safe to say you won't get admissions of error from the likes of Sisyphean or Bills Vet this early in the game. Tony Dungy went 51-20 (.718 winning percentage) and had 4 playoff berths in his first 4 years with the Colts, yet he still had his naysayers until he won a SuperBowl.

 

Some people get so wrapped up in their opinion, everything they see only reinforces that opinion. Jauron going to the playoffs won't change anything: he'll still be overly conservative, playing not to lose, a lousy gameday coach, too nice of a guy, etc.

 

Screw 'em. The rest of us know how far this team has come since Jauron took over.

[The Senator]

I feel good...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

...about him.

Me too. Always have.

[Bill from NYC]

Interesting thread.

 

I think that when analyzing Jauron, it is important to look at who he was when he got here. He was a coach who nobody wanted, hired by a GM who nobody wanted. They seemed to have something in common, a shared philosophy on how to build a football team, so I sort of lump them together as one.

 

In 06, they did a good job in the middle rounds of the draft. 07 was a superb year for the Bills in terms of bringing in players both as free agents and draft picks. 08 brought us Stroud, and it is far too early to judge the draft.

 

So far this year, it looks very good. If this team stays healthy, it is not unreasonable to expect a playoff appearance. As we know, once a team is in the playoffs, anything is possible. In this sense, I give Jauron/Levy a ton of credit. I will also, in the sense of keeping it real, say that I can't see firing Jauron if he does in fact bring the Bills to the playoffs.

That said, look at the difference Stroud has already made. The MaGahee trade was as good as it gets. Wouldn't it be great if we could draft a young Stroud, or Steve Hutchinson and sign him for 6 years? This team needs depth and strength on both lines. If Jauron does stay, he needs to stop the emphasis on defensive backs, or else he will go back to being a defensive backs assistant.

 

Jmo, and you did ask.

[SwampD]

QUOTE (Pyrite Gal @ Sep 14 2008, 07:31 PM)

I feel good...

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

...about him.

Me too. Always have.

Now that's funny.

 

 

I don't really think an apology is necessary. As Bill from nyc said, the critisims were for who he was. And he was predictable. He was conservative. His game management was bad. At times, I believe, he was outcoached. And the only reason his red flag percentage was so high was because he never threw the dang thing(at times I found this very frustrating)

 

But it appears that as the team has gotten better, which I know he played a part in, he has gotten better. I was always willing to give him a chance(at least this year), but if the things I stated above weren't corrected I would have had him on a short leash. So far so good. Go Dick.

[Beerball]

mead loves him some Dick

Now, can we all agree...enough with this mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa BS?

 

We're 2-0. The team has talent. The team appears to have two very capable coordinators. The team has a very fine ST coach. Jauron will be extended. We may continue on our winning ways. We may make the playoffs. We may win a playoff game. We may win multiple playoff games. We may win the SB. Jauron may be enshrined in the HOF.

 

OK, sorry, but...

[DrDawkinstein]

would you (OP) consider this an "open letter"??

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

I just want to know WTF took him so long to fire Fairchild!!!

[The Senator]

I just want to know WTF took him so long to fire Fairchild!!!

DJ didn't fire Fairchild - he left to become head coach at Colorado State.

 

QUICK EDIT - forgot to add, "And THANK GOD for that!"

[Sisyphean Bills]

Badol hit the nail on the head as usual. Apologize for what? You want some of us to apologize for his record (a fact) of losing? Hunh? Two games and he is now a genius and one of the all-time great coaches? Does that make sense? (Well, at least it is twice as many games as when some people started celebrating manifest greatness.) Others want "apologies" for statements that are a fiction they've created. Again: hunh?

 

The goal of this sport is not to put together a streak of 2 wins, but to win a championship. Like Badol said above, I have maintained that Jauron is not an elite NFL head coach but is rather an average coach that will keep his teams lurking around the fringes. Maybe the light is finally going on and he's going to manage this team into being better, a true contender; but, anybody that claims that it is now a fact after 2 games in September is kidding themselves.

 

The Bills are looking good at this point. I think I'll enjoy that as long as it goes and without the need to piss on other fans/posters.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Some people get so wrapped up in their opinion, everything they see only reinforces that opinion.

 

Screw 'em. The rest of us know how far this team has come since Jauron took over.

Pot, meet kettle.

[Cynical]

I feel good that I never ragged on him like some who have loudly claimed that he brings nothing to the HC job or they have claimed his Coach of the Year honor was an aberration. However, though I have been supportive of Jauron, I must admit I had my doubts.

 

Until proven otherwise, it is still an aberration. As of right now, Jauron has coached a team to ONE winning season in seven. Even if he coaches this team to a winning record this season (he should, given the pretty soft schedule the Bills have been handed), that still makes him 2 out of 8.

 

However, though is still to early to bow down and yell we are not worthy (he has to lead the team to the playoffs and actually deep into the playoffs before he deserves that) I think that the way the game played out to day and after two seasons I think any reasonable person who claims to know football needs to be impressed with what he has led the team to at this point.

 

Again, it ain't over til its over and the proof still needs to be in the pudding of making the playoffs before a full throated hosanna is justified. However, I think those who have taken the time publicly to decry Jauron or to offer up his previous achievements as being meaningless should be willing to publicly state that their past rants appear to be wrong.

 

:lol:

Oh, wait. you were being serious.

We should completely forget his past discretions, because he won TWO games this year?

 

To date, I think Jauron honestly deserves a lot of credit and a smart person should be willing to acknowledge:

 

1. The simple fact is he took over a 5-11 teams and produced a 7-9 record with them. It is not an undoable thing to oversee improved individual performances on an unproductive team, but the simple fact is they only were inadequate in terms of results his first year but they improved from horrendous to inadequate and a person with any football knowledge should see that.

 

In fact, the improvement in record coincided with a clear change in attitude from the hubub of the end of the TD reign of error and Marv also deserves plaudits for overseeing a draft which not only produced starters from second day picks but these starters produced an improved record under Jauron.

 

The record improvement coincided with other measurables of better game control and decision making like beginning to build a quality record of winning ref challenges.

 

Wow. I see a bunch of assumptions being made with no real supportive data.

 

How were the Bills "horrendous" that led them to 5-11 record?

The only data you presented to support your conclusion of "better game control and decision making" is his winning record of ref challenges.

You better have more than that. Many posters on this board were pretty pissed off at the way Jauron at times would allow his team to take a knee to end the first half without attempting to generate a point of somekind.

 

 

2. One could easily become so focused on the stats that the production of yet another inadequate 7-9 record could be judged as the team not improving from a level of inadequacy. Yet, the simple fact again is that this team led the NFL in players on the IR and they STILL managed to produce the same record. The team is clearly working with and off of what the TD reign of error left them, but the Bills again showed clear signs of taking the best and leaving the rest as the team not only made big moves getting rid of highly promoted team leaders like Fletch, former Pro Bowler TKO and the deserving of praise for coming back from a devastating collegiate injury but still clearly an idiot McGahee.

 

The actual events gave every sign of making recitations of Jauron's past spotty record with the troubled Bears and bad record with the bad Lions look more suspect than a sense of Jauron being an honestly indictable failure.

 

Jauron's past spotty record includes waiving the previous season's starting QB and declaring the newly drafted rookie QB the teams starter:

1. days before training camp actually started

2. said rookie QB was NOT even signed yet.

 

What brilliance.

 

3. Its way too early to declare victory with the impressive 2-0 record and eminently winnable next 3 games we face. However, it is not too early for those who were so bold as to declare Jauron a clear bad choice and a failure to begin to retract those remarks.

 

While you realize you cannot declare victory, you want your opponents to declare defeat.

 

Priceless.

 

Today's game was a nail-biter always and downright bad as a Bills fan to watch as we got manhandled and outfoxed in the 3rd quarter. However, the final result showed the correctness in terms of producing results of the unflashy and often boring Jauron style of encouraging competition and hanging around and hanging around and then pouncing at the right moment.

 

Jauron still has a lot to prove. He also clearly had some things he did not do well in his first two years. However, the biggest of those was he had never hired an OC who could make it work (we got so lucky Fairchild got promoted out of his OC job because my sense is that loyalty for his less than but close to adequate performance would have kept him here). However, though it is too early to draw final conclusions, I like the game Schonert calls and has designed (a big difference between Fairchild and Schonert is that the pass routes are designed in a manner which gets quick separation and takes advantage of the Evans/Parrish speed).

 

One hopes that the Schonert O will continue to grow and be productive and that Jauron will finally have found his offensive genii. When one can still play the conservative ball which Jauron does well and the offense is good enough to hang around and finally win on the road and to dust teams at home it will be very good.

 

Many of us hoped Jauron had it in him and the sign are clearly there that in fact he does have it in him. I hope that those who declared us DDOOOMMEEDDD will take this opportunity to not only hope that he does pass the test finally in the future and that they will apologize for publicly calling him out in the past. While he has not proven yet that he is a football king he has certainly given satisfactory proof that he did not deserve the negative conclusions some made about him.

 

Beautiful.

 

Jauron has a lot to prove, has done some bad things ....

 

However, two games into this season and it is obvious all past screw ups were actually "nothing".

 

Ask Bears fans if they felt the same way in 2001.

 

Jauron does have a lot prove.

 

He needs to prove he can win consistently against the better teams in the league.

He needs to prove he can win consistently from season to season.

He needs to prove he can actually win a playoff game.

 

Until he reaches those benchmarks, Jauron has proven he is nothing more than an mediocre HC.

 

7 years of futility will not be washed away by 2 games in a soft season.

[eball]

Personally, I believe the biggest mistake made by the Jauron detractors to date has been to ASSUME that the failure of his Chicago teams was primarily his doing, and to ignore all of the other factors that go into making a successful team. Additionally, they have characterized Jauron as an "overly conservative" coach without factoring the talent level of his teams. All in all, I just believe they've taken an overly simplistic view of Jauron as a coach, without much in the way of insight or appreciation for all of the circumstances involved.

 

I'm not going to call out anyone in particular for what I believe have been incredibly immature criticisms of the coach -- if they want to hop aboard the bandwagon and claim the team's success comes in spite of Jauron, so be it.

[Buftex]

I have always liked Jauron...I wanted him when they hired Mularkey. I will say though, I was starting to get a little impatient with him last year, because I thought he had to take at least some (if not most) of the blame for Fairchilds' horrid offense. Sunday, all I kept thinking through the game was "Jauron must be saying to himself, "we could have done this last year...what was I thinking". Major kudos to him, so far, for letting Schonert run the offensive show.

 

Now, out of respect, I propose we have a moritorium on the "I love Dick" and "Do you all love Dick?" type threads?

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

Pot, meet kettle.

Yep. You're one of the two or three who don't see the progress the rest of us see from year 1 to year 3 of this regime. We're good again. Some of you may have some trouble coping with that reality.

 

Just don't do anything stupid, Sis.