Firing Jauron is Only the Beginning

-Coast

The Bills fired Dick Jauron yesterday and promoted Perry Fewell to interim head coach. Yeah, the coach has been terrible and I have wanted him gone since the Chargers game during the 2006 season. The problems unfortunately are much deeper than just Dick Jauron. The people who have been making the personnel decisions for this football team since the 2001 season have been absolutely terrible. This team consistently misses on day 1 draft picks, makes poor decisions in free agency and poor decisions on what to do with their roster on a yearly basis.

The 2001 draft was the first draft with Tom Donahoe as the general manager. The year before this, the Bills started off the decade by drafting stud defensive end Erik Flowers with the 26th pick and Travares Tillman in the 2nd round. This set the tone for the entire decade.

Here are the draft picks in the first 2 rounds that the Bills have made since 2001:

2001
Round 1: Nate Clements
Round 2: Aaron Schobel

2002
Round 1: Mike Williams (4th overall)
Round 2: Josh Reed, Ryan Denney

2003
Round 1: Willis McGahee
Round 2: Chris Kelsay

2004
Round 1: Lee Evans, JP Losman

2005
Round 2: Roscoe Parrish

2006
Round 1: Donte Whitner, John McCargo

2007
Round 1: Marshawn Lynch
Round 2: Paul Posluszny

2008
Round 1: Leodis McKelvin
Round 2: James Hardy

2009
Round 1: Aaron Maybin, Eric Wood
Round 2: Jairus Byrd, Andy Levitre

I have named 22 players that the Bills have drafted in the first 2 rounds since the year 2000. Of these 22 players, only 3 have made the pro bowl. Marshawn Lynch was only an alternate and let's face it, Aaron Schobel is nothing special, and Nate Clements is not longer on our team. The Bills have wasted 2nd round draft picks on wide receivers three times. Unless James Hardy has a reincarnation, none of which will ever or have ever been a consistent contributer to the Bills.

The Bills made a trade to get JP Losman in 2004. They traded away a first round draft pick in order to do so. We all know what happened with Losman. How much better off would our franchise be right now if we did not trade for Losman, allowed Bledsoe to start for 2004 and 2005 and used our 20th pick in the 2005 draft to pick up, let's say, Aaron Rodgers?

What about the brilliant move by Levy to trade up for John McCargo? Not only did the Bills screw up by drafting Donte Whitner at 8 (3 of the nest 4 picks were Ernie Sims, Jay Cutler and Haloti Ngata) but then we trade away our 2nd round and 3rd round pick for McCargo. McCargo would have been there at 40. Not only that, we could have drafted pro bowl players such as Demeco Ryans...but we were satisfied with Keith Ellison in the 5th round becoming our starter by the end of the year.

Back to 2003 and the genious Tom Donahoe's decision to draft Willis McGahee...when the Bills had a solid running back already in Travis Henry. Don't you think the better pick would have been tight end Dallas Clark who went one pick later? After all, we haven't had a good tight end since this decade of futility began. In the 2nd round that year the Bills took the white stud defensive end from Nebraska Chris Kelsay...Osi Umenyiora went 8 picks later.

Do we even want to talk about 2002? The Bills are still feeling the effects of this draft. I am not sure how much fault Donahoe should receive for the Mike Williams debacle...but he was the GM...and Tom Modrak and John Guy were on the staff...so they are to blame for screwing this pick up. Although they weren't pro bowlers, Bryant McKinnie and Levi Jones have at least been solid NFL players...and they weren't tried out at right guard while being the highest paid player in franchise history.

I know, it is easy to go back to prior drafts and look at what could have been. In most cases, there are players that were better than the guy you took. But, I also think it is no accident that the Bills have arguably screwed up every single first round draft pick from the year 2000 through the year 2006 except two, Nate Clements and Lee Evans. During this time they had 8 first round picks. 6 of them suck. The jury is out on Marshawn Lynch as well. Who knows if he will stay a free man? I am going to go out on a limb and say Aaron Maybin will go down as a terrible draft pick also. That means, since the year 2000, the Bills have screwed up on 8 of 12 draft picks with the jury still out on Lynch and Wood. Not a good percentage.

Besides the draft, the Bills have made terrible free agent moves year after year. The Bills failed to get deals done with Antoine Winfield, Pat Williams, Nate Clements, Jabari Greer...all solid NFL starters (Clements, Williams and Winfield are amount the best at their position in football), and all of whom the Bills drafted. The Bills have signed maybe one good free agent player all decade...Takeo Spikes. London Fletcher was solid too I guess, but give me a break with Eddie Robinson and Jeff Posey. The Bills spent $50 million on Derrick Dockey, whom they cut 2 years later. They spent $25 million on Langston Walker, whom they cut 2 years later. The Bills actually thought players like Bennie Anderson and Mike Gandy were viable NFL starting offensive linemen. The Bills traded a young pro bowl tackle, Jason Peters, whom they drafted and turned into a stud left tackle. The one time they actually make a good move through the draft or rookie free agency and they trade him.

I could go on and on. The fact of the matter is, Dick Jauron was a terrible football coach, but firing him is only a small step in getting this thing turned around. The Bills need to find someone who knows a little something about what talent looks like...not a marketing guru whose idea of an offseason pickup is Terrell Owens, whose sole purpose was to make some extra cash. They couldn't have seriously thought that bringing in T.O. would magically make them good? But then again, they thought going into the season with 4 lineman who have never played a single snap in the NFL at their respective positions would be adequate. The Bills need a 100% complete overhaul.