I'm warming to the idea of keeping Marrone, assuming no one that represents a clear upgrade is available or interested. I'm not convinced that Mike McCarthy would be any better, nor am I convinced that someone like Eric Bienemy would want to walk into this mess unless he is really sold on having Minshew to build around. I definitely would not be warm to the idea of Pioli/McDaniels for reasons I won't go back into again because they're pretty much the same reasons everyone else here has.

Marrone had the Bills to 9-7 in his second year after a 6-10 start, and as far as the quitting at the end of 2014 goes, let's see an honest show of hands here. If you were given the opportunity to quit your job voluntarily and collect $4 million for it, how many of you would not take advantage of that offer?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Who knows exactly when Coughlin started meddling. Maybe from the start, maybe not until the wheels came off in 2018. What I do see is players speaking up in support of Marrone. Ramsey even said shortly into his temper tantrum that he and Marrone were fine despite the sideline spat. That, plus reports from earlier in the offseason that tensions were high between Coughlin and the players--not between coaches and the players--suggest that a lot of the blame for 2019 does fall on the shoulders of Tom Coughlin undercutting Marrone and micromanaging players when he had no business doing so. Hanging Marrone out to dry at the podium is further evidence of total dysfunction that started at Coughlin's desk, and when you look at it in retrospect, Marrone actually did a pretty damn good job of handling questions he didn't have the answer to and seemingly wasn't being given answers to. That does call Caldwell into question: was he very intentionally not giving Marrone any help at Coughlin's demand, or was he actively in agreement with the apparent decision to keep Marrone in the dark?

None of this is to say "don't fire Marrone or Caldwell". If the opportunity to bring in a clear upgrade exists, do it. Marrone and Caldwell have done well to survive this storm and hold the locker room together late this year, even if the obvious distraction shows in the on-field result. They have not done well enough overall to be bulletproof. In the real world, sure, more often than not you can just fire someone whose results you're not totally happy with and have an underling ready to step up into the role. In the NFL, it's a little different. There are only so many men in the world who can build an NFL roster, and only so many more who can coach one. If the men you have in place to handle it aren't up to the job and there's an upgrade out there, cool, fire the ones you have. But if you're just firing for the sake of firing, well, eventually you become the Browns, where top-tier coaches have no interest in the opening (even with Baker F. Mayfield throwing it) and you wind up promoting your interim offensive coordinator who showed no signs of being ready to be an NFL head coach and, by all appearances, will never be ready to be an NFL head coach. If it's not the end of this year, it'll be the end of next when he's unceremoniously dumped and becomes the latest casualty for a team that has only kept one guy in the job for more than two seasons since 2008: Hue Jackson and his record-breaking 3-36-1 record.

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