Doug Marrone issues statement on Mike Pettine

After the Cleveland Browns introduced Mike Pettine as their new head coach on Thursday, Buffalo Bills head coach Doug Marrone issued a statement congratulating his former defensive coordinator on his new assignment.

"I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Mike on becoming the Browns new head coach and thank him for all of his time and efforts with our team this past season," Marrone said in the statement. "He did an excellent job of improving our defense and we wish him the best.

"We have a plan in place and we will introduce our new defensive coordinator after our final decision has been made."

Both Marrone and general manager Doug Whaley had alluded to having a plan in place to replace Pettine earlier this week; if that's true, we may know who Marrone has chosen to replace Pettine in the very near future.

Pettine was effusive in thanking his former boss at his introductory press conference with the Browns.

"Looking back on my year with the Bills, it’s a bittersweet thing for me to leave there," Pettine said on Thursday. "I had such a tremendous year there with that organization, led by Ralph Wilson, Russ Brandon, Doug Whaley, and then I especially want to thank Doug Marrone. He opened my eyes to a lot of things about this league. He helped me greatly through the interview process, and I just learned so much football, and probably more importantly the non-football stuff, from Doug. He was tremendous for me."