Remember When Doug Marrone Was the Belle of the Ball?

Doug Marrone has accepted a job to become the assistant head coach/offensive line coach with the Jaguars, as reported by Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times-Union. Whatever that job entails, it’s quite the fall from grace for the man who willfully left his job with the Buffalo Bills, striving to perhaps double up on his income after his contract had enabled him to take $4 million and walk. On New Year’s Eve, the NFL nugget brokers began weighing in. WATCH OUT FOR THOSE JETS.

So that all happened pretty fast. Jets owner Woody Johnson called the development “pretty good news,” so it’s not as though the smoke was completely unfounded. The next day? A phone call. It went well!

“The Jets are acting quickly to interview Marrone because they expect competition for his services,” wrote Brian Costello and Mark Cannizzaro in the New York Post (Cannizaro had an exclusive with Marrone in November, and a cynic may wonder if his coverage was colored by coveting more access). “He is scheduled to interview with the Falcons and Bears next week, according to a source. The Bronx native has a strong interest in the Jets job, though. He spent four years as an offensive line coach with the Jets under Herm Edwards and speaks fondly of his time with the Jets.”

Wheels kept on spinning round:

But, he hadn’t been hired yet. On January 4th, Adam Schefter gave one of those SportsCenter reports with epic music playing in the background about how turmoil surrounding the Bills’ draft day trade for Sammy Watkins (a disaster in retrospect) possibly caused Marrone, who was not in favor, to “storm” out of the war room. Meanwhile, it was implied that Marrone was still a candidate with the Jets, but was keeping his options open.

What the hell was going on? Could all these reports have been planted by Marrone’s agent, Jimmy Sexton? By the 9th, Mike Francesa was passing along word that Woody Johnson rebuffed his consultants’ wishes to hire Marrone, who had apparently interviewed poorly. The Jets would hire Todd Bowles, and the Marrone hype train began hitting other stops:

And so here we are in mid-January. Marrone, who Colin Cowherd has now acknowledged was his MYSTERY CANDIDATE for the Michigan job throughout much of December, has taken an assistant’s job with a made-up title with one of the worst NFL franchises. It’ll only be 10 months or so until NFL and college insiders are again touting a man who had a 15-17 record in Buffalo and quit on his team as a viable option for each nascent opening.