Doug Marrone: From Jets favorite to Jaguars assistant in 3 weeks
By John DeMarzo
January 20, 2015 | 1:15pm
Well, at least he’s getting paid $4 million by a team he no longer works for.
Former Bills head coach Doug Marrone, who stunningly opted out of his contract on New Year’s Eve and was once considered the leading candidate for the Jets head-coaching job, has been hired as the coach … of the Jaguars offensive line, according to Fox Sports.
It’s a swift fall from grace for Marrone, who announced he would be leaving Buffalo with just hours remaining in 2014, apparently with the idea he would be in demand for any one of the league’s head-coaching vacancies. Marrone had the opt-out clause, which included his $4 million base salary, activated because of the Bills ownership switch.
Marrone was quickly touted as the front-runner to replace the fired Rex Ryan, but Jets brass cooled on him and eventually hired Cardinals defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. In an ironic twist, Ryan wound up taking Marrone’s job with the Bills.
Marrone interviewed with the Bears last week, and was scheduled to interview with the Broncos before canceling that interview. The Broncos’ divisional-round playoff loss caused a domino effect that saw John Fox head to Chicago and former Texans coach Gary Kubiak to Denver.
Marrone also interviewed for the 49ers head-coaching job, but San Francisco decided to stay in-house and promote defensive line coach Jim Tomsula.