Buffalo Bills 2000s Worst-Decade Team - Head Coach Selection

About a three months ago MattRichWarren presented us with his Buffalo Bills 2000s All-Decade Team series.  And for about a month we voted on a series of poles to determine who was worthy of being on that team.  But more often than not we also ended up complaining over the limited sometimes horrible talent that we had to pick from for any given position.  So it was about at the TE position that I thought "hey why don't we also vote on the worst players that played for this team over the last decade?"  And so here we are.

Now just like MattRichWarren's series I have a few criteria for players to be eligible for this team.  They had to have played in at least a full season's worth of games in this decade to be eligible.  Starting is not requirement, but you do have to have played significant amounts of snaps in those games.  That means that, for example, the Bills 3rd receiver might make the list, but a 4th or 5th stringer wont be considered.  That means that we wont end up voting for 7th rounders that ended up playing 2 snaps.  These are going to be real players that played real roles on this team over the last ten years.  And just because a player ended up on the All-Decade team does not mean that you can't also be on the worst-decade team.

What can we say about the Head Coaches that the Bills have had over the last decade except that we hope that Chan Gailey out coaches all of them.  Over the decade the team had a combined record of 66-94 and no playoff appearances.  Our best season was in 2004 under Mike Mularkey, and even then we imploded in the last game that could have gotten us to the playoffs.

So that playoff drought to me means that none of our head coaches were at all successful, therefore all are eligible (as long as the were the head coach for a full season).  So here's the stat breakdown.

Wade Phillips
The Bills head coach for 3 seasons (1998-200), Phillips lead the Bills to two winning seasons and two playoff seasons (1998-1999) before leading the Bills to an 8-8 record in 2000.  In that season the Bills ranked 9th in total offense, 3rd in total deffense and had a  Takeaway/Giveaway Differential of +6 that was good for 10th in the NFL.  He was fired after the end of the 2000 season for not having made the playoffs.

Gregg Williams
Hired as the Bills new head coach for the 2001 season, Williams stayed with the Bills for 3 lack luster seasons (until 2003).  In one of his first moves as head coach he switched the team from it's long standing 3-4 defense to the 4-3 defense that we have seen for all but one year of this decade.  He lead the Bills to a total record of 17-31 with his best season being the 8-8 campaign of 2002.  His teams ranked 13th, 11th and 30th in total offense respectively, as well as 21st, 27th and 2nd in total defense respectively.  The Bills also ranked 29th, 28th and 31st in the league for Giveaways/takeaways in those seasons.  Williams was fired at the end of the 2003 season.

Mike Mularkey
Hired by the Bills in 2004, Mularkey stayed with the Bills for 2 seasons and lead them to the decade's best record of 9-7 in his first season as the Bills HC.  In his second season as head coach the Bills fell to 5-11, for a total record of 14-18.  Under Mularkey the Bills raked 25th and 28th in total offense and 2nd and 29th in total defense, as well as ranking 7th and 13th in the giveaway/takeaway category.  Coach Mularkey resigned as the Bills Head Coach after the 2005 season when the Bills hired Marv Levy as the team's General Manager.

Dick Jauron
The longest standing head coach of the Bills this decade, Jauron was the Bills HC for 3 and a half seasons (2006-2009).  He brought the Cover 2 system to the Bills defense in 2006 as well as tried to bring back the no huddle offense in 2009.  In his time as the Bills head coach he lead the team to a total record of 24-33.  In his 3 full seasons as the Bills HC the team ranked 30th, 30th and 25th in total offense, 18th, 31st and 14th in total defense, as well as 23rd, 6th and 27th in the takeaway/giveaway differential category.  Jauron was fired 9 games into the 2009 season and replaced with his defensive coordinator Perry Fewell for the remainder of the season.

Disclaimer: All team stats are in respect to total yardage obtained and given up and are accurate in both of my two largest sources pro-football-reference.com and NFL.com.

Alright folks, there you have it, the 4 HC's that have coached full seasons for the Bills over the last decade.  Up to you to chose the worst.

Previous instalments: QB, RB, FB, WR1, WR2, TE, OT1, OT2, OG1, OG2, C, STs, DT1, DT2, DE1, DE2, OLB1, OLB2, MLB, CB1, CB2, FS, SS, Returner