On his drive home after games at Soldier Field, Dick Jauron likes to call friends and catch up. In those special Sunday-night conversations, according to several people whose ear Jauron has bent, he may talk about how well the Bears played or delve into topics that have nothing to do with football.
But Jauron hasn’t let his guard down long enough to reveal any fear of losing his job.
“It’s not a question that I have time to really think about right now,” Jauron said Wednesday. “Our only goal is to get ready for Washington, win that game and go on from there.”
Not all head coaches can think one Sunday at a time as Jauron does. The Giants’ Jim Fassel, for example, demanded a meeting with owner Wellington Mara to address speculation, so Mara fired him Tuesday night instead of at the end of the season. Last week, the Falcons’ Dan Reeves walked away with three games remaining after discovering owner Arthur Blank planned to get rid of him.
It seems Jauron thinks the 6-8 Bears’ refusal to quit after a 1-5 start should benefit him in an objective job evaluation. In his most expansive comments on that turnaround, Jauron credited the Bears’ coaching staff Wednesday with keeping intensity high and practices sharp.
“I always felt our attitude will infect the team [and] if we get down, they’ll get down, and if we look like we’ve lost hope, what reason do they have to have hope?” Jauron said.
“Every week we’re giving you what we believe is our best. It doesn’t always work. … [But] we can’t really try any harder, we can’t really put in any more time, we just have to keep working and the single most important thing is attitude.”
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Edited by Michael Kellams (mkellams@tribune.com)
and Chris Courtney (cdcourtney@tribune.com)
