The Jaguars are a somewhat random team for the Raiders to be facing in what figures to be their final game ever in Oakland Coliseum. The Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone is no random person. He shares some common bonds with the Raiders and their long time enigmatic owner, Al Davis.
First of all, Marrone attended Syracuse, which was Al Davis’s alma mater. Davis then selected Marrone in the 6th round of the 1986 draft. Marrone never played for the team that drafted him and his NFL playing career was fairly brief. But Davis made an indelible mark on him as a person and as a coach.
“Yeah, Mr. Davis had a great relationship with all the players,” said Marrone. “Didn’t matter whether you were from top to bottom of the roster, and we were in L.A. at the time, but then obviously you move on.”
Marrone later would coach at Syracuse and reconnect with Davis. It made for some great stories.
“When I became the head coach at Syracuse, we reconnected again and I would go up to Oakland and meet with him once a year and those memories, that’s something I would share with my son and I’m sure my son will share with his children and on and on and on. Because I think he’s one of the greatest men that I’ve ever met and I think he’s had one of the greatest influences on our game. Just a really, really special guy and a real caring guy and he took care of a lot of people. He was always good to me.”
“Yeah, I mean he knew everything about me and he knew everything about everyone around me,” Marrone said of Davis. “Or, you could bring things up and talk about the origins of scheme, whether it be the vertical passing game with him and Sid Gillman. You can talk about Paul Brown’s influences, [Bill] Walsh’s influences, the way he came up. His experience at Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, his experiences when he was a student at Syracuse University.
“So even near the end, obviously, he was very, very sharp. He was sharp enough that the first time I walked in, he said, ‘If you’re coming here and looking for me to donate money, you’re in the wrong (expletive) place.’ (laughter) That was exactly what my intention was, so right off the bat he just threw it right out there.”
Marrone has been an NFL coach for a while now. His first NFL job was as an offensive line coach with the Jets from 2002-05. His team played in Oakland in 2002 and 2003, giving him his first taste of the Black Hole as an opponent.
“When I was with the Jets and we would go out there,” said Marrone of his trip to Oakland. . . “I had a bunch of veteran guys who we’d warm up in the one corner of the end zone and for some reason there was one guy, he was all over me. Like he was killing me, not the players, me. And the players would come up to me and go, ‘Coach, you going to take that shit from that guy? Like, if he did that shit to me, I would go up in the stands. You need to go up in the stands, you need to confront that.’ And I’d be like, ‘Shut the hell up, would you? We’re just going to go ahead and play.’
“But I just remember those times and the playoff game up there when I was in New York and just how crazy it can be and it’s a special place. I remember going up there back in the day and you look over at pregame warmup and Mr. Davis would be down on the sideline. A lot of the old Raiders would be there and so I think for me there will be a point I think, ‘Wow! I can’t believe the Oakland Raiders are moving.’”
Marrone’s ties to Davis and the Raiders gives him a unique understanding of how emotional this game will be in Oakland on Sunday. He attempted to express that to his team and get them to understand what they are facing when they will be the last opposing NFL team to ever set foot in this iconic stadium.
“I think that, we kind of polled today,” Marrone said of his address to his team. “We don’t have a lot of players that have played at Oakland and we tried to give them a sense of…and when I say crazy atmosphere, I mean that in a very positive sense. We talked about the locker room and we’ve talked about it. I think it will be an emotional day for a lot of people there and I had a good relationship with Mr. Davis. When I was the Head Coach at Syracuse, we’d meet every year and there will be a lot of emotion knowing that finally, I know last year they went through it a little bit, but the finality of it being the last game for sure.”
There won’t be a person in that stadium that doesn’t understand the significance of this game. Even the opponent. It’s the end of an era.