Alabama will replace its offensive lineman from Queens with one from the Bronx.
After Kyle Flood left last week for Steve Sarkisian’s team in Texas, coach Nick Saban moved this week to sign Doug Marrone, Matt Zenitz of AL.com reported on Wednesday.
Marrone, 56, is a former professional and university offensive lineman who started training this position group before entering the limelight as head coach in Syracuse (2009-12) and for Buffalo Bills (2013-14 ) and Jacksonville Jaguars (2016 -20).
As a football player who seemed more comfortable with a block block in his hands teaching attackers technique, Marrone did not always seem totally at ease with the attention and scrutiny that went with being the public face of a franchise.
In Alabama, this will not be a problem. Marrone becomes the latest technician fired to find shelter on Nick Saban’s show, no longer having to worry about the opinions of owners, general managers, fans or the media. Saban speaks in Tuscaloosa, with coaches like Marrone off-limits to reporters and coordinators limited to press conferences once a year.
The arrangement is a return to Marrone’s roots as a university offensive line coach at the Coast Guard Academy (1993), Northeastern (1994), Georgia Tech (1997-99), Georgia (2000) and Tennessee (2001). He also led the front lines of the New York Jets (2002-05) and the New Orleans Saints (2006-08).
Marrone’s leap to become a head coach launched a complicated part of his story, which included him quitting an NFL head coach job and being fired from the second.
In 2013, Marrone took advantage of a season of eight wins in Syracuse for the main role of Bills. He brought a disciplinary and obstinate training style to the professionals, even engaging in a shouting match with a veteran Bills player in front of reporters during a summer training session before making the team run.
“When he was here, it was a little too structured,” said a Bills player about Marrone. “We are 30-year-old guys. It was very strict. “
Marrone led Bills to a season of nine wins in 2014, the club’s best submission in 10 years, but his relationship with the team’s management was seen as imperfect. The franchise also went through a new property in the middle of the 2014 season, triggering a clause in Marrone’s contract that allowed him to give up at the end of the season. He used it, resigning his post after dark on New Year’s Eve, without informing all his players.
“It was weird, you just turn on the TV and find that the coach left,” said a player later.
Marrone remains silent about the reasons for his departure. At the time, one of his assistants believed that Marrone was did not give an answer by the team leader about an extension of the contract for him and his team.
Some Buffalo players publicly censored Marrone for his decision, but they also welcomed the change. The players felt that Marrone’s replacement, Rex Ryan, treated them more as adults than as college students. But Ryan’s more flexible training style quickly collapsed and he was fired before the end of his second season. The team president and GM, who sometimes struggled with Marrone, were also fired later.
Marrone landed as the coach of the Jaguars offensive line, keeping a low profile while reflecting on what went wrong in Buffalo. Part of that process included attending public speaking seminars and learning how to deal with media anxiety, ESPN reported.
“He was always like he was stepping on eggshells,” former Alabama and Bills defensive striker Marcell Dareus told ESPN about Marrone’s time in Buffalo. “It looked like he was nervous all the time. It just doesn’t go well with the players, especially since we should be following you. “
Much like his relationship with players in Buffalo, Marrone had a complicated relationship with the press that covered the bills. Towards the end of his first season, he called a reporter to an aircraft hangar and interrogated him about a tweet before heading out for a road game. But the other side of his personality was also evident when, after mocking a reporter for speaking badly during a press conference, Marrone walked away from the pulpit and tried to hug the reporter.
Marrone told the reporter it was what his grandmother would have done in the Bronx. Growing up in a modest neighborhood in the shadow of New York City, Marrone was the first of his family to finish college. His three seasons at Syracuse earned him an NFL chance as a sixth round pick in 1986, but he played only five games in his career when he was excluded from six different teams.
Marrone, who since childhood became known for his love of bologna and cheese sandwiches, felt out of place with the pitfalls of his brief career as a professional player. His strange experience at a chic Miami Beach restaurant during his time with the Dolphins led Marrone to later, as a coach, send his players to etiquette classes.
His second chance as head coach came at the end of the 2016 season, when the Jaguars fired Gus Bradley and gave Marrone the temporary position. He was named permanent coach and led the Jaguars to the AFC Championship game in their first full season in 2017. Success came along with Marrone’s renewed coaching style.
“He’s a lot more open than he used to be,” said Dareus at the time, while playing for Marrone’s Jaguars. “He is much more understanding.”
However, 2017 was his only playoff appearance in six years at the helm of Bills and Jaguars, and his last season in Jacksonville ended with the franchise’s worst record of 1-15. He was fired earlier this month.
Now Marrone has reached the last stage of his journey as a coach. He will be away from home at Tuscaloosa’s university football outpost, but back to his more familiar role as tutor of the line’s attackers. Alabama fans may never hear from Marrone, which will be very different from when he was the center of attention at times strange in his most recent jobs.
From a football perspective, Marrone will play a key role in 2021 in building the Alabama offensive line. The group will lose the Outland Trophy winner left-back Alex Leatherwood, the pivot Landon Dickerson, winner of the Rimington Trophy, and the left guard Deonte Brown. He will return fifth-year center Chris Owens, right-back Emil Ekiyor and right-back Evan Neal – but Marrone will likely need to develop younger players to fill the other two starting places.
This can be the right task at the right time for Marrone.
“He’s an offensive lineman,” said former Bills striker Seantrel Henderson in 2018. “When I came [to Buffalo], he really helped me with my technique. Like, really taking time out of practice … and teaching us techniques and stuff. Help us with our game. Coach Marrone was a nice guy and I enjoyed working with him ”.
Mike Rodak is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.