Bills work to gift wrap a victory for Jauron
Beating Browns would be best birthday present
Published: October 07, 2009, 11:51 pm
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The Buffalo Bills' players gave coach Dick Jauron a cheerful "Happy Birthday" serenade on the middle of the practice field at the end of Wednesday's workout.
They could give him a much-needed present by winning what could be a do-or-die game for the head coach on Sunday.
If the Bills suffer another dismal defeat when they play the Cleveland Browns at home, the pressure might become too great to keep Jauron another week.
Despite their disappointing 1-3 start, the Bills do not want to fire Jauron in the middle of the season.
The optimal time to make an in-season change — or perhaps the least awful time — would be on a team's bye week. That gives coaches and players more time to adjust to the change. The Bills' bye week still is four weeks away.
Nevertheless, a loss to Cleveland would sink the Bills to uncharted depths in Jauron's four-year tenure, giving them back-to-back losses to winless teams. The Browns are 0-4 this season and have lost 10 straight. Their last win was at Buffalo, 29-27, last Nov. 17. Cleveland ranks last in the NFL on defense and fourth from the bottom on offense.
Bills players acknowledged Wednesday they are eager to make the storm clouds over One Bills Drive go away.
"I think for this organization, for our morale, for our confidence [it's important]," said defensive end Chris Kelsay. "Every week I feel is a must win. With everything going on, what everybody's talking about, I don't put a lot into that, but I'm aware of it. So it'd just be nice to hush up some of the naysayers so we can go about our business and just play football."
"If we keep playing like we're playing, we'll be fighting to save our own job," said defensive tackle Marcus Stroud. "So it's not a point of going out there and being like, 'We have to play to save Coach's job.' At the same time, we're all under evaluation. We have to go out there and play for ourselves and definitely for Coach Jauron, because he is a great guy and he does a great job coaching. Despite all the flak that you guys give him, and other people give him, he comes out here, he prepares us very well for the game, and it's just a matter of us going out there and doing our job."
There was no sense of gloom and doom in the locker room at practice or in the locker room afterward, as evidenced by the players' serenade for the coach, who turned 59 Wednesday. Players seemed upbeat and eager for the Browns' game.
"I thought we had a great day's work," quarterback Trent Edwards said. "We are a cohesive group, we like working together, so there's no reason why anyone should be hanging their heads right now."
Disappointed fans don't agree. Jauron's popularity in Western New York has been in the dumps since the end of last season, when polls showed fans were 90 percent in favor of his removal.
His approval rating has only gotten worse.
Midseason firings are not uncommon in the NFL. Last season three coaches — Oakland's Lane Kiffin, St. Louis' Scott Linehan and San Francisco's Mike Nolan — failed to last the year. Overall, coaches have been replaced during the season 60 times in the last 40 years, since 1970.
None of those teams went on to make the playoffs.
Firing the coach in-season rarely makes a difference in terms of winning games.
It does serve to make the fan base feel a little better about the team in the short term. It also can take a bit of pressure off the organization and players for the short term.
Jauron is scheduled to make about $3 million a year for this year and the next two seasons.
If the Bills are forced to dump Jauron, the obvious interim replacement on staff is special teams coach Bobby April. He's the assistant head coach. He works with the entire roster as the special teams coordinator. He also has by far the most coaching experience of the Bills' coordinators.
There are a slew of high-profile, expensive head coaching candidates on the market, including Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan, Mike Holmgren, Jon Gruden and Tony Dungy, all of whom have Super Bowl rings.
There could be steep competition for some of them, particularly if some big-market teams like Dallas and Washington go searching for a new coach at the end of the season.
However, all of those coaches would command salaries of $7 million a year and up. That's about what Shanahan was making. Holmgren was making $8 million before he stepped down from Seattle after last season.
The small-market Bills never have been among the league's big spenders for coaches. Barring a miraculous change in philosophy, it's unreasonable to suggest any of those big-name coaches would be targets of the Bills.
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