I am more willing to be patient with young players than old coaches.

Yeah – good article. Gives some perspective on our place in the AFC East

Bills fans should keep in mind that it’s still better to beat up on “bad” teams than it is to be one. The bigger wins will come in time….Too many NFL teams fall into the trap of impatience. They look for the quick fix and the instant gratification of a playoff appearance.

“Instant gratification” pretty much sums up the Jets-Favre thing. I agree, tm, about the Jets and Miami although in fairness I think Miami is building more for long term success (Damn you Parcells! Is it his mission in life to help our division opponents and mess with the Bills, or is he coming here next?). But the Jets are definitely in salary-cap hell and saddled with a QB that qualifies for AARP discounts.

Patience is the key but the quick turn-around of the Jets and Miami is still irksome.

Clearly we let the 4 wins in the beginning of the season pump up our hopes to unreasonable expectations. I fully agree that we need to realize that we are building something special and that we need to be a bit more patient.

That being said, I don’t know how that correlates to keeping Jauron around, not sure that he is the reason why we drafted Lynch/Edwards/Poz or signed Mitchell or Stroud in the off season. He could be the reason why we still have Royal/Fowler in the mix, when both positions were available in the draft. I know that DJ seems like a nice guy and he seems to be able to keep the team from being too down on themselves but is he really a good coach? He seems totally unable to instill the sense of urgency or inject passion into our guys. I would like to see some emotion, some passion come out sometimes, show that it means something to you, you know what I mean..

When we go into battle, I feel very comfortable with the individual match ups but I never, ever feel that we have a shrewder coach than the other side, never! I am always worried that he might fall asleep. The way he blunders challenges and misuses timeouts is so frustrating. As the season progresses I am of the opinion that it is critical to get a coach that can get us to the next level, someone that understands a thing or two about smash mouth football and playing in the severe conditions of buffalo, someone that can show some passion. Mr Wilson should sell the team before he passes in order to get an owner that is fully committed to winning and not just getting by.

The way he blunders challenges and misuses timeouts is so frustrating.

I don’t like the way the team uses timeouts, either, but not all of that can be put on Jauron. My biggest pet peeve is when the offense can’t get out of the huddle and get the snap off in time to avoid a timeout. I HATE that, but that’s not Dick’s fault. That’s on Schonert/Edwards and communication.

Impatience? Quick fix? Unreasonable expectations? Seriously?

From a fanbase and organizational standpoint, we have been waiting 8 years (I think I can start saying 9 years now). We are now on our 3rd regime attempting to reach the playoffs. I’m not even concerned about a Super Bowl, contending in our conference, our even winning a playoff game. I’d just like to see a playoff game.

As a team, we are now in year 3 of the Jauron project. I see no real end in sight; in fact, I’m not sure we’ve even reached a milestone. Whitner made a playoff guarantee in the preseason (Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.) Poz backs his guarantee. Several other players speak of the playoffs as the season goal. Hell, even the guarded, conservative Jauron indicated that playoffs were the ultimate goal. Not to mention their ridiculously easy schedule (outside of divisional games) and the fact the Tom Brady went down 8 minutes into the season to bring the high flying Patriots back to Earth. I would hardly call expecting playoffs this year “unreasonable.” It was unreasonable to think that at 5-1 the Bills would actually miss the playoffs.

I understand the main theory in the article and how it pertains to the Bills. Supposedly, the Bills are a good (certainly not great), young team with potential for the future. However, I’m beginning to wain on that point. Maybe they do. But they certainly haven’t shown that over the last quarter of the season.

Expecting “instant gratification” isn’t unreasonable. The Falcons have a first year coach and a rookie QB. The Ravens have a first year coach and a rookie QB. The Redskins have a first year coach and a third year QB. The Packers have a second year coach and a fourth year QB who started his first game this year. All these teams appear to show more promise than the Bills AND have a shot at the postseason this year. Meanwhile, the Bills continue to look no closer to the postseason than the previous year(s).

If you want to calm yourselves down, go check out Jeff Fisher, coach of the Tennessee Titans wiki page. If you look at the first few years of his tenure, it is remarkably similar to Dick Jaurons first few years here. Remarkably similar 1-5, 7-9, 8-8, 8-8, 8-8. Look at even Bill Belichick’s career. We need to have patience. The absolute worst thing that could happen for the Bills future would be to fire Dick. He has on the job experience, knowledge of our personnel and organization that could translate to great success in the next couple of years. The chances of finding a new head coach that would be “The One” would be much less than 1%, where as DJ could very well find himself coaching a perennial ployoff contender if we just show patience.