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Fantasy Fix: Tiffany Simons and Gregg Rosenthal look at the top running backs who may be available to pick up this week. (NBC Sports)

Fantasy Fix: Tiffany Simons and Gregg Rosenthal look at the top running backs who may be available to pick up this week. (NBC Sports)

Fantasy Fix: Tiffany Simons and Gregg Rosenthal look at the top running backs who may be available to pick up this week. (NBC Sports)

Nov. 17: While Gregg Rosenthal can’t criticize Bill Belichick too much for going for it, Mike Florio compares the coach’s controversial call to playing Madden with a 12-year-old. (NBC Sports)

Nov. 17: While Gregg Rosenthal can’t criticize Bill Belichick too much for going for it, Mike Florio compares the coach’s controversial call to playing Madden with a 12-year-old. (NBC Sports)

How suddenly did the Buffalo Bills fire head coach Dick Jauron?



One of his captains was caught totally unaware.

AP Photo/David DupreyBills linebacker Paul Posluszny was caught off guard by the firing of head coach Dick Jauron.

“I found out through you,” Bills middle linebacker Paul Posluszny told me over the phone about 10 minutes after the Bills sent out a press release. “I got a text saying ‘Coach Jauron’s been fired.’ I said ‘I don’t think so.’ So I went to ESPN.com, and I’m looking at your picture right now.



“Wow. I couldn’t believe it. I haven’t spoken to anybody in the organization or any of my teammates yet.”



A move had to be made. The Bills are 3-6 and in last place in the AFC East.



A litany of missteps — firing the offensive coordinator before the season, implementing then scrapping the no-huddle offense, miscalculating the offensive line, in-game decisions — made it clear Jauron was not getting the job done.



But Posluszny was stunned that it happened now.



“I’m completely surprised,” Posluszny said. “Obviously, we don’t have a good record, but we were all under the impression that we would have at least to the end of the season. If something was going to happen, then it had to happen, but to have him fired now in the middle of the things is very, very surprising.”



Buffalo went 7-9 in each of Jauron’s previous three seasons and will likely miss the playoffs for a 10th straight season.



“You didn’t want it to happen this way,” Posluszny said. “Every time we lose, we say ‘We’ve got to turn this around. We’ve got to turn this around.’ We weren’t able to do that, and this, obviously, is the consequence for that.



“The players have the utmost respect for Dick Jauron. He’s a great guy, a great person. But in this league, you’ve got to win. Unfairly, since we’re not playing well, it gets put on him. He has to take all the heat for it. Whether that’s fair or not, that’s just the reality. We all love Dick Jauron. He’s a great guy and a great man. It’s just unfortunate that it had to happen this way.”



Posluszny was hopeful a fresh voice and new ideas will help transform the organization’s culture.



“What we have to stress is that this is an opportunity,” Posluszny said. “There’s no time to be depressed or be upset. We have to play the Jaguars on Sunday. This is a change that we have to make work for us. We can’t sit back and say ‘What if?’ or ‘I don’t know.’ We have to get ready to go and get ready to play a game.”



The news was so fresh to Posluszny that he asked me who the next coach would be. I told him the expectation was that defensive coordinator Perry Fewell would take over on an interim basis.



“If he were the guy, I think we have a lot of confidence in him,” Posluszny said. “He does a great job with us defensively. He’s the type of guy that has the ability to lead a team, an entire football team.



“If he’s the guy, it’s good that it’ll be someone in house, someone we know.”

Anyone who followed the Cowboys during the Barry Switzer regime immediately thought of him when Patriots coach Bill Belichick decided to go for it on fourth-and-2 from inside his own 30-yard line Sunday night against the Colts. Switzer infamously lost a game in Philadelphia 14 years ago when he called for “Load Left” on fourth-and-1.



Frequent Beast contributor Ed Werder, who also does work for the TV side, caught up with Switzer on Monday evening and turned around an entertaining column for ESPNDallas.com. Of course, anything out of Switzer’s mouth is pretty entertaining — and often profane. Switzer told Werder that he absolutely would not have gone for it on fourth-and-2 if he’d been in Belichick’s shoes.

“It’s totally different,” Switzer said. “We had fourth-and-3-inches. If it had been fourth-and-2, we’d have kicked the SOB.”

During the 1995 season, the Cowboys and Eagles were tied at 17 when Switzer elected to go for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 29-yard line. Troy Aikman handed the ball to Emmitt Smith, who was stuffed at the line of scrimmage. The Eagles went on to win the game and Switzer, like Belichick, faced a tremendous amount of criticism. Fortunately for Belichick, he has a few more NFL skins on the wall than Switzer had at the time.

“I know what he’s thinking,” Switzer told Werder. “Belichick is thinking, ‘If we make this play right here, we win the ballgame.’

“He didn’t want to punt to Peyton Manning. In pro football, two minutes is an eternity, and he’s seen the two best quarterbacks in football go up and down the field on each other. When that happens, you’re thinking, ‘My defense can’t stop them, but I know how I can win the game with one play.’”

Switzer actually had a chance to reconsider his decision to go for it against the Eagles. Smith was stopped on fouth-and-1, but the officials ruled that the two-minute warning occurred before the snap. Given the opportunity to change his mind, the Cowboys ran the same play with Smith — with the same result.

“Everybody thought when you don’t get it the first time, you’ve got to punt it,” Switzer said. “But what was I going to do at that point, change my mind and basically say, ‘I don’t believe in you guys?’

“Hell, you’re committed at that point.”

In a lot of ways, that play defined Switzer’s time with the Cowboys. And it’s probably not completely fair — especially since that ’95 team went on to win a Super Bowl. Belichick has enough Super Bowl credibility so that a regular-season loss to the Colts won’t damage his legacy.



Strong work by Mr. Werder — as always.

Can you imagine Bud Selig using a cell phone, better yet having a Twitter account on it?



Me neither.



I didn’t find a chance to comment on this story, but thought it was still worth raising.



Sunday at LP Field, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell actually responded to a tweet from a fan who told him she had an extra seat next to her. He joined Lisa Hayes for part of the game.



This guy is great. This is no act, his man-of-the people approachability. Hayes will forever be a witness to that. And it’s hardly the first time Goodell has left a luxury box to experience the game the way the people who eat, sleep and breathe his league do.



Disagree with him about his player conduct policy, his fascination with London, his support for an 18-game schedule or anything else, but he’s certainly not hiding under a rock while he takes a strong stand on these things.



He’s one big reason to have faith that there will be labor peace, and not a work stoppage, ahead.



Paul Tagliabue, Goodell’s fascinatingly uninteresting predecessor, was awkward, but nowhere near as awkward as Selig, baseball’s bumbling commish.



Maybe the NBA’s David Stern would respond in a similar fashion to such an invitation. The invitee would be treated to a lecture about how everything Stern believes about the NBA is true because he says it.



And the shrinking interest I see in the NHL leaves Gary Bettman out of the conversation, though Stern’s old right hand man is a lot like Sergeant Schultz and would tell his seatmate about the wonderful condition of professional hockey in America, particularly the Southeast.



Cheers to Goodell. Here’s hoping his colleagues, or their eventual replacements, are paying attention and he becomes the model for the job.