Doug Marrone Resigns As Buffalo Bills Coach

I hate quitters.  When the going got tough, Doug Marrone quit as head coach of the Buffalo Bills.  For a guy who criticized players for not putting the team first, here's a guy who put himself first and walked away from a job he started and left undone.  He walked away from his players, his staff of assistants, the organization, the fans and the city.

With talk of possible changes in the upper management of the team he didn't even bother to find out what those changes might be.  They might have been changes for the better.  But Marrone made himself the priority and exercised an unusual opt-out clause in his contract allowing him to leave if there was an ownership change.

That contract will allow him to be paid his $4-million salary even if he finds another job.  That alone is outrageous, but again Marrone had only himself in mind.

Most of the players are surprised, some are upset.  The Bills seemed to be on the right track.  They finished with a winning record for the first time in 10 years and for only the second time in the last 15 years.

Despite the winning record there were still some calls for Marrone to be fired.  And there are reports that Marrone was especially upset by that.  Doesn't that come with the job?  As head coach of a pro football team every move you make will come under scrutiny.  He was an offensive lineman when he played and he worked closely with the offensive line during training camp and during practice, but the offensive line was one of the major problems with the team.

Marrone came to the Bills with a reputation as an imaginative offensive innovator but the result was nothing of the sort.  In fact the offense regressed from the days of Chan Gailey.  To be fair, the defense was much improved over the past two seasons under Marrone, but it was wasted by a poor offense.

So here we are with major questions at quarterback and now at coach.  Former Bills quarterback Frank Reich, former Steelers coach Bill Cowher and perhaps Bills defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz would have to be considered at the top of the list of possible replacements.  As for Marrone - see ya pal.  Thanks for nothing.