When being yourself just isn't successful

[Sen. John Blutarsky]

Dick Jauron is well into his 3rd coaching job now. His teams have all had similar characteristics. They try hard, they have bad offenses, they have no QBs, they have rotating OCs, they are CONSTANTLY injured. Dick's mantra has remained the same through it all, offensive mindset is the same, defensive scheme is the same, vacant sideline affect the same, strength and training regimen the same, training camp the same, etc. All the while garnering acknowledgment for being a nice guy and having the respect of his players. At what point, if you are Dick Jauron, do you wake up one morning and realize that your entire ethos is what is causing you to fail? How do you move forward? On what basis would he be able to continually tell himself otherwise given that he has had no real success doing things the way he has done them as a HC anywhere he has been?

 

Ben Franklin said insanity is trying to solve problems, expecting different results, using the exact same methods. By this definition, Jauron is batshit crazy. When has he ever changed ANYTHING of substance in his routine? People like Bill Parcells and Bill Belicheck are people who could continually do the same thing and reasonably expect success and even THEY do things differently over time. The difference is that coaches like Parcells and Belicheck define their systems and put their stamp on whatever they want to run. Whatever it is it is run their way. Coaches like Jauron are defined by their systems. it's all they have in the bag. We have 4 good WRs right now? irrelevant, Dick needs TEs. Give Belicheck our WRs and watch what they do offensively. We have a bunch of the ultimate 3-4 OLBs on the team? Irrelevant! Dick is a Tampa 2 guy.

 

There is a term for what coaches like Dick Jauron are. Coordinators. Good head coaches can morph themselves into whatever their teams need at the time and mix and match coordinators to suit their needs. You've got a great O-Line and a QB who doesn't make mistakes and an awesome defense? Great, you are the '86 Giants, Mr. Parcells. You've got a big armed QB, a good young WR, a great receiving TE and an all around RB with a so-so defense? Great! You are the 96 Patriots Mr. Parcells. You've got no QB, no defense, won 1 game the previous year and have a collection of "athletes" without positions and a multi-talented RB? Great! You're the 08 Dolphins Mr. Parcells (I know he wasn't coach, but his fingerprints were all over that team). Hell I'll even give Brian Billick credit and I hate him. He got hired as an offensive mastermind and won a Super Bowl and very consistently won with a team with an annually terrible offense and great defense. That = good HC skills.

 

There are tons of great coordinators who sucked as HC. Dick LeBeau, for example, is a tremendous DC and a terrible HC. Ray Rhodes was a great DC and awful HC, Wade Phillips is a great DC, Norv Turner is a great OC, Ted Marchibroda was a great OC, Buddy Ryan was a horrible HC but one of the best DCs of all time. The list is endless.

 

The ultimate failing of RW during his whole tenure is hiring HCs for what they have done tactically in previous roles. He hired Phillips because of his success as a DC and ignored his horrible showing in Denver. He hired Greggggg because he could bring a 4-3. He hired Mularkey because of his offensive "creativity", etc, etc, etc. What he really needs to evaluate is the candidate's leadership skills, openness to the creativity of others, ability to marshal and lead a staff of others who will actually do the bulk of the work, willingness to hold people accountable for failure, motivational ability (not everyone is a yeller but if you don't yell you have to do SOMETHING effective), and game management skills. Basically he needs to interview for the Bills COO job, not for head coach. The coach doesn't do much coaching, that's what the underlings do and if your HC can't find and groom quality underlings your team is doomed to failure. Some would say that Bill Walsh helped Shanahan, Holmgren, Reid, Gruden, Mariucci, etc. succeed. I would argue the opposite. Without those men's talents day to day as position coaches and coordinators Walsh would not have been as successful. Jon Gruden was a WR coach for the SB Packers. Any chance that Tyke Tolbert is gonna be Jon Gruden someday?

 

Sadly, I think that Jauron is well beyond the point of realizing that his way does nto win, has not won, and will not win. If he's salvageable at some point doesn't he have to say "The hell with it Alex, let's chuck it deep and see what happens" or "Hey Perry, let's run some 3-4 on 3rd down and see if we can use Maybin a little better."?