Maybe in the end the Bills were happy to see coach Doug Marrone choose to take $4 million to walk away. If the team would have fired Marrone, the total would have been up to $8 million.
Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, who has been leading the local-media charge against the Jets hiring Marrone, shares a variety of not-so-positive observations about Marrone from unnamed Bills sources who seem to be happy he decided on New Year’s Eve to pull the rip cord on a platinum parachute.
“He’s a control freak,” said one person who knew Marrone in Buffalo.
“It’s about power and control,” another unnamed source said. “That is what drives Doug Marrone. That’s why he is a very dangerous person to have inside the building.”
The desire for control reportedly included approving any video clips posted on the team’s website. Per Mehta, Marrone also had a reputation for belittling people throughout the organization.
“Marrone didn’t berate everyone,” Mehta writes. “If he felt that you could further his cause, he would tolerate — or even engage — you. However, one person who was treated with respect by Marrone in the past two years told the Daily News that he never felt it was authentic.”
Many players reportedly didn’t like Marrone, who was perceived as lacking people skills and being “coarse.” Mehta also provide a “meh” review of Marrone’s two years in Buffalo, capping the item with this quote from another unnamed source: “He is the definition of average.”
On one hand, it’s not a surprise that folks would be bitter about Marrone’s decision to abandon ship, prompting them to harp after the fact on characteristics shared by many who become successful coaches at the highest level of their chosen sports. Still, Marrone’s decision with a sub-.500 record in two NFL seasons to walk away from the “Bills family” has understandably left some members of the family upset.
But if Marrone is such a bad guy and average coach, maybe Bills sources should be saying great things about him, in the hopes that the Jets will hire him. Maybe folks in Buffalo are hoping to blow up his shot at the Jets job because they don’t want to have to compete with him in the same division.