Jauron Should Stay In Buffalo

I never thought Jauron’s job should be in question.

Some of us were asked to write on the topic, and my first thought was, “That’s ridiculous, what the hell has he done wrong?  In the NFL, it’s hard to win games, especially if you are a piece or two short and the whole league knows it.”

But… the fact was, his job is going to be in jeopardy if they continue to struggle, and I know that most people are angry at the moment and are looking for a head to chop off, as counter-productive as that would be in this case.

But when questioning whether a certain coach should or should not be fired, it’s important to remember what an NFL head coach actually does—or more importantly, what he doesn’t do.

He isn’t the offensive coordinator.  He usually doesn’t call the plays or design the offense.  In Jauron’s case, he literally defers all of this to Turk Schonert.  A big mistake?  Possibly, but has there really been enough time to make that assessment?

Jauron is a defense guy, but he isn’t the defensive coordinator, either.  He usually doesn’t design the defensive schemes or implement them on Sunday.  In Jauron’s case, he provides input, guidance and feedback to Defensive Coordinator Perry Fewell.

He isn’t the special teams coach either…

The best way to describe what he does is to compare it to a ship’s captain.  He lays out a course, brings his senior people together, provides a platform for them to work together and come to an agreement on certain items, and he makes sure they follow-up and do the job.  His amount of “hands-on” is much less than people make it out to be.  In reality, he is more of a manager than a coach.

So the question becomes, does he recognize when one of his coordinators is failing?  Does he make adjustments—i.e., does he get more hands-on when he sees something that one of his coordinators does not?  More importantly, do the players feel like they are in a good boat, that might have a leak here or there, but that is generally sturdy enough to get them to where they want to go, collectively?

In this case, I think it’s premature to talk about firing Dick Jauron.  He’s handled players well, they all want to play hard for him (or for themselves, who really cares), and we have a second year QB and first year OC.

The only thing I question with Jauron is whether or not he has too much loyalty to his coordinators, even when they fail repeatedly.  Fairchild left on his own volition, but would Jauron have shown him the door anyway?  I’m doubtful, and there’s the worry.

But keep in mind, when this crew first showed up they stripped the defense with this vision of “smaller-penetrating DT’s” and that was clearly not working—it’s just too difficult to find DT’s that are capable of holding up for four quarters and are also athletic enough to penetrate and be effective against the rush. They gave in, and Marcus Stroud and Kyle Williams were the starters this year.  A clear-cut, and impressive adjustment.

Without being on the inside, it’s impossible to know for sure what input was given and when, so all you can do is give it time and see if the quality of the product improves under his watch.  Frankly, I was very optimistic about this season and now, understandably, we’re all very disappointed.  Can they turn things around?  Can they adjust?

Give Jauron more time.  The Bills shouldn't shoot themselves in the foot because we’re all crushed at the moment.