South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Marrone’s steady hand crucial for success
JACKSONVILLE — Doug Marrone has been coaching long enough to know when a ship is straying a bit off course — not heading for an iceberg or anything catastrophic, but needing to steer it back into place.
For maybe the first time since he became the Jaguars’ sideline boss in 2017, Marrone finds his team somewhat reeling. How it responds from a tough predicament these next few weeks may come to define how resilient and tough the Jaguars really are.
Being 3-2 and tied for first place in the AFC South doesn’t sound like a troublesome spot, but there are brush fires that pop up and must be addressed with every team during the season. It’s the job of a head coach to make sure players don’t let difficult circumstances — a bad loss, injuries, roster turnover, egos clashing — turn into something that gets in the way of winning.
It’s by no means a state of emergency, but the Jaguars’ 30-14 road loss to the Kansas City Chiefs last week did rattle the locker room to some degree.
“I’d say the reaction was we were angry,” defensive tackle Abry Jones said. “We didn’t play like us. We didn’t show up at all. You hate to lose, but it hurts even more to see that you lost barely putting up a fight. That’s pretty much where all the anger came from.”
Safety Barry Church says Marrone calmed things down in his post-game talk with the team, making sure the bitter defeat in a highprofile game didn’t lead to any loss of focus in preparing for Sunday’s road test against the Dallas Cowboys.
Unlike the New York Giants or even the Cowboys, Coach Doug Marrone has displayed a sound grasp of the tenor of his Jaguars, who, coming off a loss in Kansas City, face a road challenge in Dallas.
where off-the-field drama has seeped into those franchises the past couple weeks, the Jaguars have been relatively quiet on that front with a nononsense Marrone at the helm.
“Even if there’s like a little scuffle among teammates here, anything like that, he puts that fire out quick,” Church said. “He put his foot down after the Chiefs’ loss and let people know, ‘Hey, we’re still on the right path, just keep going and we’ll win.’ He does that all the time.”
Marrone’s steady hand would be needed the rest of this past week. The next few days were followed by a series of bad developments on the medical front. Tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, running back Corey Grant, left tackle Josh Wells and long-snapper Carson Tinker all went on injured reserve, which forced the Jaguars to quickly sign or promote five players to restock the roster.
It’s not been an ideal lead-in to another road trip, but the last thing the players want is making a tough situation worse by adding another loss.
“That would be a problem; that would be a much bigger deal,” said defensive tackle Calais Campbell. “We’d have to take a harder look at what we’re doing if Dallas wins, but I don’t see that happening.”
“Adversity is hitting this team right now, obviously, in a major way,” added safety Tashaun Gipson. “But we’re not remotely in panic mode.”
A lot of that is because Marrone, a 54-year-old Bronx native, embraces the challenge of having to fight through difficult circumstances. He usually handles it with a calm attitude rather than trying to jolt his players into fixing it with a speech that has paint peeling off the walls.
“Marrone does a really good job of being honest and authentic,” Campbell said. “That allows us to really buy into what he says. He knows exactly what to say to keep the guys focused and in line. He keeps you focused on small goals in order to reach the big goals.
”He has a lot of poise. I haven’t seen him blow at all actually. Now we have some coaches that get real upset, but he’s not one of them.” Buccaneers tight end Cameron Brate during the second half against the Steelers on Sept. 24.