During every Bunting season, there were people online doing for every loss what you are doing here. Even in Bunting's last season, that crowd either went silent or else continued making excuses to the bitter end. Perhaps one or two of them admitted that we who wanted fired after Year 2 or 3 were correct, but I don't recall any doing that. What I recall is that most of the big Bunting defenders (BobLee Says is one well known example) hated Butch from the hiring and opposed him at every opportunity.
The reason that excuse making like yours doesn't work is that it fails to take into account similar factors for all the opponents. The approach assumes that all the excuses for us in losses are the only factors that could have altered the outcome. But what if those opponents, any or all of them, had issues that kept players off the field?
When Bunting was fired, he was reported to have left the building and seeing reporters and some of his supporters to have said, while holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart: "We were this close."
Bunting's attitude was that time was all he needed. It was always a matter of his losses being easily explained away, and then time would make it all work out.
