Dick, Ralph, and Russ. The Holy Trinity of a Losing Atmosphere

As I listened to several Bills media sources today, the consensus is that fans are upset that in the fourth quarter with roughly 7 mins to go, the Bills punted on a fourth and one.  At the time the Bills were down by 10 points and that move almost seemed like the coaching staff was giving up on the game.  But, this is not what is troubling me.  Although I have heard a few hours worth of radio on this one point, I think some more important issues are being missed.

Coaching staffs will come and go, but bad habits can last forever.  The habits that the Bills have been displaying are terrible.  Yes, Dick Jauron should be on the hot seat, but not because he is afraid to gamble to win a game.  The coach should be on the hot seat because his teams have trouble being prepared and are continuously making the same mistakes.  When the turnovers and penalties are combined this team will be hard pressed to win games if these mistakes continue.

But the problems are not just from the coaching staff, they do get filtered all the way up to the General Manager and Owner.  Russ Brandon has not given the team enough depth to have healthy competitions at several key positions.  There is also not enough depth to replace a starter if one would go down due to injury.  The only position with depth is the DB’s and possibly the running backs.  The Bills rarely use a fullback and do not start two TEs which means they start three WRs.  So beyond Owens, Evans and Reed the WRs are a little thin.  The key places to look at when it comes to the Bills is their offensive line and linebackers.

The offensive line consists of 5 players who have less than 60 NFL games experience; that’s 2 rookies, and 1 second year player who has never started until this year.  If a team is in a position where they need to start three players with zero NFL experience on the offensive line, one can only imagine how bad the depth is behind them.  The linebackers have a bit more depth, but not much as they continue to try and promote from within and continue to use the same players that failed to make key plays the year before.

Bills fans love Ralph Wilson, but he is a part of the problem as well.  Ralph Wilson continued to show confidence in Dick Jauron through a very tumultuous year last season.  If attitude reflects leadership, and there is no one ahead of the owner on the leadership scale, then it is no wonder this team continues to make excuses for their coaches.  The losing attitude in Buffalo must be replaced.  Now, it is not the same as the losing attitude in Oakland.  The Buffalo losing attitude is different, the players are so use to giving up that it appears they do it while they are still in the game and could even possibly win.  So far, the Bills have shown flashes of “coming out flat” in every game.  It has been so obvious that even the game’s commentators call them out on it.  At least last year they had the decency to give up after the game was out of reach.

Coaching is not the only issue, and until the Owner and GM take responsibility for their part, there will be no change in the attitude surrounding the Buffalo Bills.  The in-game coaching miscues are not the biggest issues plaguing Buffalo, it is the consistent mistakes that are costing the Bills football games.  Until these mental errors are fixed, Bills fans can expect much of the same, lots of penalties, a few turnovers, and a team that starts to give up around the third quarter.  You can’t blame a coach for a team giving up on a game.  but you can blame a coach for having a team so ill prepared that they feel like they need to give up on a game.

Tags: Buffalo Bills, Dick Jauron, Josh Reed, Lee Evans, Oakland Raiders, Ralph Wilson, Russ Brandon, Terrell Owens