Beard - The way that Marrone walked out of Buffalo just to take the guaranteed money probably didn't impress any of the other owners. Apparently the wording of his contract was something like only Parcells' lawyers would demand and get. He was expecting other teams to be knocking on his door and then there was silence and he ended up accepting a pretty lowly gig in Jax. Other owners looked at this and said it stinks how he treated the Pegulas as the new Bills owners.HC: Doug Marrone
OC: Nathaniel Hackett
DC: Jim Schwartz
Hard pressed to assemble a better combination imo.
Stephen Ross is a pretty high character guy attracted to other high character guys. Everyone on FH now knocks Joe Philbin as a cretin, but I think that he was he was actually a pretty high character guy and wanted that in his coaching staff and players. I can see Ross being very wary of Marrone for this reason. However, Tannenbaum is a negotiator.
Personally, I am more attracted to a Defensive guy taking over. If you look right across the NFL, some of the best long serving Head Coaches came from Defensive backgrounds (eg Belichick, Marvin Lewis, Pete Carroll, John Fox, Ron Rivera - arguably Lovie Smith, Rex Ryan and Jeff Fisher). My point is that more of the Defensive guys tend to stick around. Mike Zimmer finally got his HC opportunity in Minnesota and he's looking good this year. Todd Bowles and Dan Quinn are also Defensive guys.
I would consider Jim Schwartz in the mix for HC, but I'm increasingly attracted to Matt Patricia from New England. There is a mindset that Belichick underlings will always fail as HCs because New England's success is all Belichick. Mangini, Crennel and McDaniels all failed, but Bill O'Brien has been a pretty good appointment in Houston, making them competitive straight away and Patricia is very impressive. He also had Offensive exposure early in his coaching at NE.
The other Defensive guy who is allegedly highly regarded is Teryl Austin in Detroit. I would expect that the Ndamukong Suh connection is pretty strong. Ross and Tannenbaum could double down on it by getting Ndamukong's guy as HC. I would think that there is a better chance of Austin becoming HC than Schwartz. We also know that Austin is impressive in interviews.
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