The last day of vacation is a bittersweet feeling: one last splash of supposed paradise can be euphoric, even if it's accompanied by the cold, cruel slap back to reality shortly after.
Veteran NFL safety Dean Marlowe, however, was more than happy to come back home.
""I took a year and a half vacation, that's how I look at it," Marlowe, one of the newest Buffalo Bills yielded from the team's trade deadline activities, told the organization's official site. "I'm appreciative of the other places that I've been. I was able to grow and learn and now coming back here, it's just so awesome."
Marlowe's de facto sabbatical, taken after a four-year stretch in Western New York (2017-20), took him to Detroit and Atlanta before the Bills called the Falcons on Tuesday, acquiring him back for a seventh-round draft choice in a deal between division leaders.
With Micah Hyde done for the season and Jordan Poyer's status in question, Bills head coach Sean McDermott had the ideal solution to the medical woes in the secondary: get back the safety prospect he originally found as an undrafted free agent out of James Madison during his time as the Carolina Panthers' defensive coordinator.
"When you call a player and he's excited to come back, that makes you feel good just as a human being, and for what we're trying to do and how we're trying to do it," an excited McDermott said, echoing Marlowe's own comments that reuniting with his coach was "the best thing."
Marlowe, 30, originally followed McDermott to Buffalo when the latter was granted the team's head coaching job in 2017. After a year on the practice, he became a reliable depth option as the Bills began to build their budding AFC East dynasty, part of a franchise reclamation that has yielded four playoff spots in the past five season. Buffalo (6-1) seems well on pace to repeat the feat as the top seed on the current AFC playoff bracket.
The Queens native is eager to show why Buffalo believes he's the right name to help them keep their potential championship pace alive.
"The ultimate goal is to continue to win games, to make playoffs, go on a run," Marlowe said. "We take that every day as the playoff caliber mindset."
Even as he became an NFL nomad in the last two seasons, Marlowe kept Western New York close to his heart: when he wasn't busy, he was constantly expounding on the Bills' growing success, making their contests appointment viewing when his own team wasn't in action.
"Every team that I was on, I told them I said 'Hey, I'm going to the couch to go watch the Bills man, I'm watching the game tonight,'" he said. "Once you become a Bill, you're always a Bill. They (Bills Mafia) respect you and show you love. Once you played here for a while, they embrace you as you embrace the city as well.
Everyone has their own mojo, what they want to do and things like that. But for the most part, everybody respects the Buffalo Bills around the league. Whether team you're on, they're gonna say, 'Hey, Buffalo is playing and that's a real deal team.'"
Over three seasons in blue and red, Marlowe picked up 38 tackles as a reserve defender and special teams contributor. His most notable moment in a streaking buffalo helmet was a two-interception performance in the final week of the 2020-21 regular season, victimizing Tua Tagovailoa twice in a 56-26 win over Miami.
Marlowe's second Buffalo tour begins on Sunday afternoon, when the Bills face the New York Jets in a divisional matchup (1 p.m. ET, CBS).
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