So Dick Jauron is available to paint your house this weekend if you need somebody. The Buffalo Billshave relieved Jauron of his job as their head coach, effective immediately. And while there's nothing on Jauron's resume that's going to cause anybody to mix him up with Vince Lombardi, the other Bills news of the day makes me wonder if the man really ever had a chance.
The news of Jauron's firing comes on the same day the Bills apparently decided to give Ryan Fitzpatrick the starting quarterback job over Trent Edwards (presumably because neither Rob Johnson nor J.P. Losman answered his phone). And while we all certainly wish Fitzpatrick well, let's get real. This quarterback decision is that of a team that has no real quarterback. And when you don't have a real quarterback -- a reliable, stud, franchise-type quarterback -- well, that's when people's careers end.
Fired a week before the start of the season as the Bills' offensive coordinator, an angry and confused Turk Schonert said the problem in Buffalo was that coach Dick Jauron wanted "a Pop Warner offense" -- an offensive playbook as simple and uncreative as possible, and that Schonert's schemes were too complicated to fit in with Jauron's plan.
Now five weeks in to the season, having committed nine (NINE!) false start penalties Sunday in losing one of the worst offensive games in sports history to the previously winless Browns, the Bills are playing as if to prove Schonert right.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- If Terrell Owens was upset at how few throws came his way in his first game as a Buffalo Bill, he wasn't saying. He wasn't talking, wasn't tweeting and wasn't complaining -- to anybody who might hear and make a big deal of it, at least. In Buffalo's heartbreaking loss to the Patriots on Monday night, Owens didn't catch a ball until there was 4:43 left in the third quarter. In all, he caught three -- two that counted in the final stats and one that was nullified by his own interference penalty.
But the VH1 reality star didn't have a thing to say about his night, or his team's. He sent a locker room attendant to fetch his clothes so he could dress out of sight and escape without doing interviews. And his Twitter page offered no insight.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- A good magician never reveals his secrets, so we're never going to know how Tom Brady pulled off this latest trick. How could he look so rusty and timid for 55 minutes, and so sharp and confident for the final five? How did he look up at a stadium full of 68,756 fans so spitting mad they were booing the cheerleaders and feel so certain he could send them all home happy, with a 25-24 comeback win for the ages? How did he and the Patriots survive this Monday night land mine without the deep passing game? Without, really, any help from their defense?
We have some of these answers, and for others we'll just have to wonder, and draw our own conclusions. In the end, Brady and the Patriots sidestepped an inexcusable season-opening upset because the Bills choked -- and because, just before it got too late, their quarterback turned from a rag-armed pumpkin back into Tom Brady.
Amid all these NFL predictions flooding the web this week there are few certainties. But if recent history is any indication, we know for sure that at least one of this year's division winners will be a team that finished in last place a year ago. At least one team has turned the trick every year since the NFL went to the current eight-division format -- 10 teams total in six seasons. The Dolphins did it last year, the Buccaneers the year before, and the Eagles and Saints the year before that.
The reasons for this phenomenon are obvious -- overall parity, four-team divisions, a scheduling system that (basically) makes life easier for the teams at the bottom and tougher for the teams at the top. The only question as the 2009 season dawns is which of last year's last-place finishers will be among this year's division winners. We ranked all eight of them in order of their chances to continue the trend:
The NFL season is a little more than four weeks away, so FanHouse is at Bills training camp today for Stop 4 and Mile 768 of Dan Graziano's five-camp, 1,100-mile road trip.
PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- While the Bills were enjoying an evening practice under the lights at St. John Fisher College, star receiver Terrell Owens was back in the trainer's room, tweeting about the sprained toe that kept him from being on the field.
"Just finished treatment!! Done 4 the day!" Owens tweeted just before 8:30 p.m., in his first injury-related tweet of the day. "Every day is a good day. I'm definitely tahnkful." (Give him a break. It's hard to type on those things.)
The NFL season is a little more than four weeks away, so FanHouse is at Bills training camp today for Stop 4 and Mile 768 of Dan Graziano's five-camp, 1,100-mile road trip.
UPDATE, 6:05 p.m. -- The Bills just released this statement from coach Dick Jauron: "Terrell Owens will not participate in tonight's practice due to a sprained toe. I will address his status in more detail following tonight's practice session."
That session is scheduled to run from 7 PM to 9 PM ET, and I promise FanHouse will update you at that time.
PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- Showed up here this morning hoping to talk to Terrell Owens, but when I went out to the field to watch the morning walk-through, No. 81 wasn't there! And I wasn't the only one who noticed. The regulars pressed the Bills' PR staff for an explanation, and that proved difficult to get.
CANTON, Ohio -- The NFL's first preseason game of 2009 was billed as an AFL tribute contest honoring two charter members, the Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills -- and no, that wasn't George Blanda handing off to Billy Cannon in the first quarter on Sunday night.
Most of the real nostalgia centered on whether Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young could recapture any of his 2006 rookie-season impact. Or even show anything of relevance after he sat on ice most of '08 following the loss of his starting job to veteran Kerry Collins in Week 1.
The verdict on Vince through one outing? Not so hot.
The weather's hot, there are morning and afternoon practices on the schedule and Terrell Owens is getting along with his quarterback. Don't look now, people, but I think it may be the first day of training camp.
This morning in Rochester, N.Y., the Buffalo Bills became the first NFL team to open its 2009 training camp. And as you might have expected, their chatty new wide receiver was the focus of the attention.
It's July, the slowest month of the year for the NFL, and it's driving you nuts. You need a fix. A hit. Anything NFL to pull you through the dog days. FanHouse is here to help with an in-depth look at each division that should have you plenty prepared for training camp. We're calling it the Summer Scramble, and today we examine some of the AFC East's burning questions -- and make a ridiculously early prediction of how the division will finish.
So Dick Jauron is available to paint your house this weekend if you need somebody. The Buffalo Bills have relieved Jauron of his job as their head coach, effective immediately. And while there's nothing on Jauron's resume that's going to cause anybody to mix him up with Vince Lombardi, the other Bills news of the day makes me wonder if the man really ever had a chance.
Fired a week before the start of the season as the Bills' offensive coordinator, an angry and confused 
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- If 
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- A good magician never reveals his secrets, so we're never going to know how 
Amid all these 
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