Quote:Bravo. I almost did what you did, and went back to look at the track record of where certain head coaches who were former coordinators came from, and how the staff they served under before head coaching fared overall. And indeed my gut feeling was right; there have been coordinators from teams with poor overall records who went on to be good head coaches.

 

   I mentioned Jim Caldwell in another thread but what you mentioned reminded me of something related involving him.  If you look at Coach Caldwell's record as Wake Forest HC in his 8 seasons,  which was 26-63, many,  if not most would conclude that he's not fit to ever being an NFL HC.   HOF GM Bill Polian was smart enough not to view the record by itself,  when promoting Coach Caldwell to become the Colts HC in 2009 when Tony Dungy retired.  In his first season as Colts HC,  Caldwell took the team to the Super Bowl.   Then led the Colts to the AFC South Title the following season.   The season ending injury to Peyton Manning derailed the Colts 2011 season,  which led to Jim Irsay cleaning house.   But when combining Jim Caldwell's 3 seasons with the Colts and 3 with the Lions through this point in time,  he's taken 4 teams  ( 66.7 % ) to the playoffs.  

 

  Though Syracuse wasn't on Wake Forest's level in terms of difficulty to recruit,   t's still a hard place to build a winning football program.   All things considering,  Doug Marrone's record with Syracuse isn't bad.  

 

  Being that Marrone is the only HC with the BIlls in the last 12 seasons to have a winning record,  his coaching stay with them certainly has credibility on this end.   That much more considering his willingness to go with Kyle Orton at QB when he realized that EJ Manuel wouldn't live up to his draft billing.

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