I've had it.
With head coaching candidates like Brian Billick, Eric Mangini, Mike Shanahan and Steve Spagnuolo on the market, Buffalo Bills fans were hopeful that head coach Dick Jauron would be given the axe for someone that could actually get the job done.
Or not.
After the 5-1 Bills ended their season at 7-9 in one of the worst meltdowns in Buffalo sports history, owner Ralph Wilson Jr. gave Jauron a one-year extension so he could stay at One Bills Drive.
This is the same owner that laughed after the Miami Dolphins embarrassed the Bills in their first regular season game in Toronto.
If that doesn't prove that Wilson needs to disappear, I don't know what does.
I don't care how he disappears-I just don't want him running a football team that is made a joke of year in and year out.
As I watched the New York Giants fall to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, I noticed a funny thing. Friends of mine, all Giants fans, were on the verge of tears as the fourth quarter ended and their Super Bowl hopes destroyed.
As a Bills fan, I never experience these emotions, especially when a team I project to make the playoffs falters. There's no sadness or no anger. Instead, all I have to show is a bad taste in my mouth that I have gotten used to for the last decade.
The pattern has been obvious over the years-Gregg Williams? A nobody who was mediocre at best. Mike Mularkey? A never was. Dick Jauron? Someone who sees being 7-9 every year as a great thing.
While I always blamed the coaches, I finally realized something at the end of this season-it's not their fault. They might be horrible at their job, but it isn't their fault that they were ever given the opportunity.
Instead, we have an 80-year-old tyrant who is bathing in millions of dollar bills as his team embarrasses itself year after year at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
At this point in time, I never would have expected that I would feel this way, but Wilson has sucked the life right out of me. I don't care anymore if the Bills move to Toronto.
When that happens, I won't care anymore. The depression I always look forward to will dissipate as I focus 100 percent of my life on winning football teams in the Buffalo area.
Hopefully, when Wilson's tenure as owner ends, One Bills Drive will find ownership who will want this team to be successful. Fans will see players who do not find mediocrity acceptable and aim for their team to go 19-0 and win the Super Bowl.
Until then, Bills fans will be given a product that they somehow love. Ownership will continue to take away their team and put them in a city that doesn't care, while players will defend a coach with no spine. The team will give millions to players who don't earn it, while Wilson will bathe in the money that season ticket holders will shell out year after year.
It's the perfect storm for mediocrity.
Here's to another 7-9 season at One Bills Drive.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
