Dick Jauron is good at something

By E rock  |   Tuesday, October 27, 2009  |  Comments( 74 )

Buffalo Bills
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Our beloved coach Dick Jauron is often found to have questionable decisions including conservative play calls, poor clock management, the inability to throw challenge flags and general crappy-ness in game planning and preparation. Despite all these shortcomings, coach Jauron does excel at one thing – his teams tend to beat other bottom of the barrel NFL team most of the time (OK, some of the time). This fact is well documented by Bills scholars across the globe.

What is not talked about, however, is Jauron’s uncanny ability extract an easy schedule filled with cupcakes from the NFL supercomputer year after year after year. Like an annoying, clueless poker player who keeps hitting winning cards, Jauron simply sits back and watches with a stupefied gaze as potentially formidable opponents fall apart at the seams in the year that they face the Bills.

This is not all due to parity based scheduling either. While it ensures annual ‘showdowns’ with the likes of Cleveland, KC and Jacksonville, it still only accounts for 2 games out of a 16 game schedule.

This year was supposed to be different with a schedule destined to test the team’s meddle. However, true to form, once mighty juggernauts like Tennessee and Carolina fell fast and hard from leagues eilte. Other respectable teams on the schedule such as Tampa also decided to join the dregs of the NFL in the year they play the Bills. Jauron and co. were even granted a bonus gift this year by getting to play Indy, their toughest opponent, in a likely meaningless game in week 17.

Well what about previous years for this perennial 7-9 team? Well glad you asked. Last year the Bills were given the gift of the AFC and NFC West. The NFC West has long been a laughing stock and the AFC West might have been at its all time low last year with SD winning the division at 8-8. The Bills got punked by the one legit team in this group (the Cardinals), lost a game to SF that rivaled the ugliness of this year’s browns game, and rattled off 6 of their 7 wins against the rest of this rag tag group.

The 2007 season was the same but different. This time aid came from within as the Bills snagged 4 out of their 7 wins from their AFC East brethren, the Jets and the Dolphins, both of whom happened to be hitting their 10 year nadir during the same season. They went 1-3 against a reasonably strong NFC East that year with their lone win against a Redskins team that walked directly from Sean Taylor’s funeral into the dressing room for the game. They also split 2-2 with the AFC North which included an ass kicking from the Steelers, a loss to Cleveland in a blizzard and wins against two former playoff teams who were in the process of bottoming out (BAL and CIN).

It could be argues that the first of Dicky J’s 7-9 squads in 2006 was actually the most impressive as this year’s list of opponents included more mediocrity instead of futility. The Bills split evenly in the division 3-3 with the usual Pats meltdowns, traded games with the Jets and swept the Dante Culpepper led Dolphins. The Bills also split with the average NFC Central that year getting crushed by the Bears and a pathetic loss to the lowly Lions. Forgettable wins were scored against the Vikings and Packers both in a down year. And yet another 2-2 split was achieved against the mediocre AFC South with close losses to Indy and Tennessee and close wins over the Jags and Texans. The difference in that season actually turned out to be the 2 parity games which were two division winners that year in SD and Baltimore.

So there you have it, current contenders in the AFC and NFC Central have been fairly warned for next year. Jauron is a magician and he will work his magic to make sure your once mighty team will hit rock bottom in the year that you play the Bills. You can just picture Jauron now; slowly nodding in silent agreement with these events unfolding as he calmly draws up defensive schemes with seven DBs and game plans to punt on 3rd down. Might be time for another contract extension.
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