Jaguars Sign Doug Marrone As Offensive Line Coach

The Jacksonville Jaguars got their man. Sort of.

Chris Wesseling of NFL.com is reporting that the team has hired Doug Marrone to be their assistant head coach/offensive line, per John Oehser of the team's official website.

Marrone was in Jacksonville last week being interviewed by head coach Gus Bradley for what was thought to be the open offensive coordinator position with the franchise. Jacksonville also interviewed Nathaniel Hackett who was Marrone’s offensive coordinator in Buffalo.

The team’s official website states Marrone, 50, spent the past two seasons as the Bills’ head coach, and was the head coach at Syracuse University the four years before that. He went 15-17 with the Bills, including a 9-7 record this past season. He was 24-25 from 2009-2012 at Syracuse.

Marrone, who replaced Chad Gailey as the Bills’ head coach, coached Buffalo to its first winning season since 2004 this past season, but left the team on December 31. Marrone was the offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints from 2006-2008, and coached the New York Jets’ offensive line under head coach Herm Edwards from 2002-2005. He worked for Saints Head Coach Sean Peyton while in New Orleans.

He spent the 2001 season as the tight end/offensive tackles coach with Tennessee.

Could Marrone’s decision to leave Buffalo abruptly after a 9-7 season be one of the reasons Marrone was passed over for more high profile positions? Wesseling eludes to that fact in his story.

“It's telling that he didn't land an offensive coordinator position after interviewing for that job in Jacksonville last week. Perhaps NFL owners and front-office executives questioned his loyalty after watching him flee Buffalo just two years into his commitment.

“Marrone's predicament is reminiscent of another former Bills head coach. Mike Mularkey ended up as Dolphins tight ends coach in 2007 after leaving Buffalo for undisclosed reasons during a front-office shakeup in 2005.”

No matter what the reason, the Jaguars appear to be putting the pieces together to make their coaching staff stronger under Bradley, who is 7-25 in two seasons here in Jacksonville.

The hiring of Marrone on Tuesday may also give credence to a report on bigcatcountry.com over the weekend that the Jaguars were working on potentially hiring Marrone as their offensive line coach, Greg Olson as their quarterbacks coach and Adam Gase as their offensive coordinator. Marrone is the only one to have signed with Jacksonville so far. It has also been reported that Baltimore has similar interest in Gase now that Gary Kubiak is the new head coach in Denver.