Dick Jauron the Latest Example of Damage a Bad Quarterback Can Do

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.

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.

Again, the Bills had a teetering Jenga tower of reasons to fire Jauron. He was 27-39 overall and 3-6 this year as Buffalo seems well on its way to extending its streak of missed postseasons to 10 in a row. He constantly seemed confused on the sidelines. His personality is not the kind that inspires men to greatness. When he fired his offensive coordinator a week and a half before the season, the guy said the reason he got canned was because Jauron was too simple-minded to understand real NFL schemes. Any of these reasons on its own is enough to heat a coach's seat. All of them together constitute a real good case for firing him.

But don't you wonder what might have been, if Trent Edwards had turned out to be what the Bills believed he would be? And looking at it now, don't we have to take this firing as the latest example of how important the quarterback position is in the NFL?

Put simply, this is the reason Matthew Stafford's agents could walk into the Detroit Lions offices this past April and ask for $41 million guaranteed. Once the Lions decided they wanted Stafford with the No. 1 overall pick, they were effectively telling him and the rest of the world they were betting on him to be a franchise QB. And if they really believe that's what he's going to be, then they should be willing to pay him almost anything he wants.

It's a risky bet, but it carries the price tag it carries because it's the bet that determines the fate of your franchise. This is not an overstatement. If you get the quarterback position right, you are set up for a decade. If you pick Peyton Manning or Eli Manning or Ben Roethlisberger or Tom Brady, you're basically making yourself a playoff team -- or at least a playoff contender -- every year. And if you're in the playoffs, you're making millions of extra gate, concession and TV dollars you wouldn't otherwise be making.

Conversely, if you miss on quarterback, you're more or less doomed. If you pick JaMarcus Russell or Brady Quinn or Tim Couch (that's right -- same team) or Ryan Leaf, you're going to spend that next decade finishing in last place and trying to dig out of that hole.

You think it's because of chance or luck or geography that the Colts thrive in a new stadium in Indianapolis while the Bills wither in Buffalo? Indianapolis isn't L.A. It's not New York. It's not even Dallas. If that team stunk every year, if it gave its town's citizens no reason to go see its games, if it hadn't won the Super Bowl three years ago and looked almost every year for the past seven years like a team that could, it could very well be the one playing most of its home games in a decrepit old money pit and a couple each year in Canada.

But it's not, and that's because this right here is the list of every quarterback who's started a game for the Bills for the past 12 seasons:

Doug Flutie
Rob Johnson
Alex Van Pelt
Drew Bledsoe
J.P. Losman
Kelly Holcomb
Trent Edwards
Ryan Fitzpatrick

And here's the same list for the Colts:

Peyton Manning

Sure, sure, the Colts do a lot of things better than the Bills do. And there's Tony Dungy and Marvin Harrison and Bill Polian and all kinds of other people who deserve credit for what they've built there. But don't you think it helps that, since 1998, they haven't had to worry for one second about the quarterback position? At all? EVER???

People, it is no coincidence that the Bills are tied with the Lions for the longest current streak by an NFL team of years without making the playoffs. It's no coincidence that their last postseason experience was the Music City Miracle. It's all tied to the quarterback position, as it is with every NFL team. And that's why Perry Fewell or Bobby April or whoever the guy is who replaces Jauron had better hope that Ryan Fitzpatrick is the next Tom Brady. Because if he's not, it's going to be real hard to stay head coach for very long.