JAGUARS Owner still seems to believe Baalke should pick new coach
JACKSONVILLE — Shad Khan’s most trusted adviser is a general manager whose last five NFL seasons ended with a coaching change. It’s a strange decision at best, a significant problem at worst.
The Jacksonville Jaguars owner is relying on Trent Baalke to lead the team’s coaching search, a process that currently includes 10 candidates.
How many of them would welcome a pairing with Baalke seems to be the most pressing offseason issue for the Jaguars (3-14), who have dropped 35 of their last 41 games and have nine seasons with double-digit losses during Khan’s decade of dysfunction in Jacksonville.
Baalke’s resume includes failed tenures with Urban Meyer (2021), Doug Marrone (2020), Chip Kelly (2016), Jim Tomsula (2015) and Jim Harbaugh (2014).
Baalke worked as a football operations consultant to the NFL for three years between front-office stints with San Francisco and Jacksonville.
The 57-year-old Baalke remained in place after Khan fired Meyer in mid-December, a move that irked fans enough for them to organize a “clown out” protest for Sunday’s season finale against Indianapolis. A couple hundred fans, at most, showed up dressed in colorful wigs, oversized bow ties and red noses for the 26-11 stunner that torpedoed the Colts’ playoff bid.
“I think I saw someone snatch one off after we got a turnover, so I don’t know if he was trying to hide that he had the clown suit on,” cornerback and UCF alum Shaquill Griffin said. “I play for the true fans, and the true fans know who they are, the ones who don’t have to put on suits, the ones who are going to ride or die for this team no matter what, no matter the outcome.”
That pool seems to be getting smaller as faith in Khan dwindles. He is 44-120 as owner, a dismal stint that includes a 2017 playoff run in which the Jaguars reached the AFC championship game for the third time in franchise history.
It’s been downhill since, with the Jaguars reaching “rock bottom” this season under Meyer.
“With everything that happened this year, we can all put that behind us now,” pass rusher Josh Allen said.