FanHouse Dick Jauron

As far as the United States Justice system is concerned, Michael Vick has served his debt to society. He spent the last 19 months in the clink, and now he's kicking it in his mansion. The terms of his probation stipulate that he get a job (his construction gig starts next week) and remain under house arrest when he's not wearing a hard hat.

But there will come a time when he seeks to return to the NFL. The first order of business is getting commissioner Roger Goodell to reinstate him, and then finding a club interested in his services. The former will be tougher than the latter, although neither appear insurmountable.

Not that you asked, but...

...Only the Lions could find themselves in this position -- owners of the No. 1 overall pick in a year when neither they nor anybody else really wants it. It's such a Lion position in which to be. The consensus is that there's no Orlando Pace in this draft -- no clear-cut, impact, franchise-changing No. 1. And the Lions need so much help that they'd love to trade down and get three or four useful players instead of one. But since nobody else seems to know who they'd take if they traded places with the Lions, nobody's lining up to do it.

Personally, having watched a lot of college football last year, I'm an Aaron Curry guy. For me, he's the guy Mike Ditka would be trading his whole draft and putting on a wedding dress for if Ditka were still in charge somewhere. He's the all-around game-changer type in this year's draft. But since he's not a quarterback or a mountainous offensive lineman -- not necessarily a guy who'd even be on the field on third down -- nobody feels like they want to spend the top pick on him. Fair enough, I guess. Seems to me he's athletic enough to do whatever they'd need, but they know better than I do.

Terrell Owens recently signed with the Buffalo Bills. People questioned Buffalo's willingness to give the temperamental wideout an excessive amount of money, based on his previous, ahem, issues with other teams.

Those questions might seem pretty on-point in the early going too, as word out of Buffalo is that Owens has already skipped the team's first workout, albeit one that was voluntary.

Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson said today that head coach Dick Jauron will return in 2009.

Despite signing a contract extension during the season, Jauron was on the hot seat because of the Bills' late-season collapse. But Wilson released the following statement today:

"It is well known that I share many of the fans' dissatisfaction with our offensive game management. That being said, I believe that this team, at this time, is better served by continuity in the coaching staff rather than a disruptive overhaul. The team played hard all year long and there are many positives to build on. This is not to say that we will be complacent. In my discussions with Dick and our senior football people the issues are recognized and I am confident they will be addressed."

Jauron has gone 7-9 in each of his three seasons in Buffalo.

Every Play Counts is Michael David Smith's weekly look at one specific player or one aspect of a team on every single play of the previous game.

In an installment of Every Play Counts last month, I wrote about how the New York Jets' defense had dominated the Buffalo Bills' offense, and specifically how defensive tackle Kris Jenkins was a practically unstoppable presence in the middle of the line. The Bills finished that November game with just 30 rushing yards on 17 carries, and the Jets' defense looked like it could lead them deep into the postseason.

And then in Sunday's Jets-Bills rematch, Buffalo ran 32 times for 187 yards and two touchdowns, and the Jets' defense looked like it had no business playing in the postseason at all. Although Bills quarterback J.P. Losman ended up giving the game to the Jets with five turnovers, including three in the final 2:06 of the fourth quarter, the Jets' run defense was a mess.

So what's gone wrong? And can the Jets count on their run defense to lead them in the playoffs? We explore in this week's installment of Every Play Counts.

There are two weeks remaining in the regular season and we've already seen Mike Nolan, Lane Kiffin and Scott Linehan lose their jobs for varying degrees of incompetence. But more heads will roll in the coming months, and some bone-headed decisions made yesterday will go a long way in cementing the fate of the less fortunate.

Dick Jauron, Buffalo Bills:
A crappy economy might be the only thing to save Jauron's job, because after jumping out to a 4-1 start, the Bills are now sitting at 6-8. And the last two minutes of yesterday's game against the Jets was a microcosm of their season.

With Buffalo leading 27-24 and trying to run the last 240 or so seconds off the clock, somebody thought it would be great fun to let J.P. Losman throw a pass on second-and-five from the Bills' 27. Predictably, he fumbled, the Jets' Shaun Ellis recovered, and 11 yards later, that's your ball game.

Right after J.P. Losman fumbled away a Bills win with just over two minutes left in a game they were winning 27-24, FanHouser Shane Bacon emailed to remind that a cardinal rule of quarterbacking was to throw the ball away when you've got nothing.

It was a sound point. Losman was scrambling when Abram Elam hit him from behind, causing a fumble that Shaun Ellis returned for a touchdown, but there was another rule that loomed large. Somewhere in the big book of coaching rules, it states that one shall not let J.P. Losman try to win a game unless there's absolutely no other hope.

Dick Jauron will likely have plenty of time to review that rule when the Bills fire him in a couple of weeks. His team finally showed up to play, no small thing given their recent efforts, on Sunday, but Jauron removed all hope of a win by calling for a pass. It was second-and-five, the two minute warning would follow the play and the Jets had just two timeouts. And the Bills had run for 187 yards to that point in the game!

To his credit, Jauron took full responsibility after the game.


It's nice to hear that honesty. We'll see if it's enough to quiet the swirling rumors about the status of his job.

The Buffalo Bills, in case you didn't catch Monday night's game against the Cleveland Browns, are in the middle of a meltdown. They started the season 4-1, were staring down a very easy schedule, and had blossoming young offensive talents in Trent Edwards and Marshawn Lynch.

Lynch showed up Monday, for sure, but it's tough not to say that had Edwards not thrown three picks in the first quarter that this game probably would have ended differently. And so, naturally, there are many things being discussed and a lot of innuendo being slung around in Buffalo.

"I would say that for a young quarterback, it's got to affect you when things start to slide a little bit and go downhill," said [Dick] Jauron. "I think that the guy is a terrific player, I think he's just going to get better and better as we move on.

"I was just doing what they told me to do," said Edwards. "That's well within his range, and to be perfectly honest, though, we shouldn't have been in that position to begin with. We should've been putting more points on the board and not having it come down to that situation, but that's the way it happened and that's the nature of the game.

Well, that's an understatement (not to mention a totally unwarranted shot at a pretty darn good kicker stuffed into a shoddy situation). Also, in fairness, Jauron is standing behind Edwards. But the fact remains that the kid looked just awful against a Browns defense that he should have been able to shred.

It wasn't long ago that people couldn't mention Trent Edwards without pointing to his league best passer rating in the fourth quarter. But that was back when Buffalo was 4-0, 4-1, 4-2 ... you get where I'm going with this.

After Sunday's loss to the Patriots, one in which Edwards looked Losmanian, the Bills are now 5-4 and tied for last in the AFC East. Part of the current three-game losing streak can be blamed on injuries -- the team was without Aaron Schobel and Donte Whitner -- but every club is missing key personnel this time of year.

The bigger issue, I think, is that Edwards has regressed to the point that people wonder if J.P. Losman changed uniform numbers and cleaned himself up.

Head coach Dick Jauron, always the level-headed Ivy League egghead, is keeping things in perspective:

"I think we have a quarterback, I really like this guy," said Jauron. "To start the season he played so unlike a young quarterback that now whenever he makes an error, we think there is something wrong.

"[Sunday] was probably not his best day, clearly, in a number of ways. It's a learning experience. We're going to have to live with some things because I think he is an outstanding player."