Quote:People seem to dismiss the Marrone conspiracy theory by saying that "Gus wouldn't hire his replacement".... That may be true, at least not knowingly. But with how badly he botched the first offensive staff hirings, I'm sure Caldwell took a more "hands on" approach when hiring this new group. Caldwell's fate is tied to Bortles beyond just this year, while Gus may very well not make it another year. No way Caldwell doesn't have input on who will be handling his prized QB.

I doubt Caldwell had any more influence with this group of coaching hires than he did with the initial ones.  

 

As far as the original hires, when a coach is hired on, he's usually going to have to scramble to assemble a staff.  In most cases, the list of options available to him are limited based on timing.  That was certainly true for Gus.  He hired a guy he had some history with in Fisch, who was on the Seattle staff with him previously. 

 

With the hires this time around, it was less about history and more about sharing  a common vision.  Gus spent 2 solid days interviewing Olson for the OC job, and he spent a similar amount of time with Marrone before pulling the trigger on that hire. He made the hire.  Caldwell didn't use any sort of psychological gamesmanship to make that hire happen. 

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