Jaguars face potential overhaul,
As the Jacksonville Jaguars search for a head coach to replace Gus Bradley, they will consider a name from their past.
General manager Dave Caldwell said the team would be interested in speaking with Tom Coughlin about a potential return to Jacksonville, where he was coach from 1995 to 2002.
Coughlin, 70, stepped down from the New York Giants after last season. He coached the Giants to two Super Bowl titles.
Coughlin led the Jaguars to the playoffs four times and advanced to the AFC Championship Game two times but was fired after a 6-10 season in 2002. He compiled a 68-60 record with the organization, with his .531 winning percentage the best in franchise history.
“Tom’s a great man and a great person. We’ll see where it goes. There will be a lot of guys we’ll be interested in talking to,” Caldwell said.
Doug Marrone was named interim coach Monday and will be considered for the full-time job. He was assistant head coach and offensive line coach this season. He coached the Buffalo Bills from 2013 to 214, compiling a 15-17 record before opting out of his contract.
The Jaguars fell to 2-12 after losing 21-20 to the Houston Texans. With the loss, Bradley’s career record in Jacksonville fell to 14-48 over nearly four full seasons. That makes him the head coach with the lowest winning percentage in the Super Bowl era (.226) with a minimum of 50 games coached.
The Jaguars were a popular preseason pick to compete for an AFC South title, but quarterback Blake Bortles regressed and consistently compromised a talented defense.
The permanent coach won’t be forced to stick with Bortles, Caldwell said.
“There’s no untouchables in this organization, including myself or any player, no matter how they got here, whether it was through a draft pick or a high-priced contract,” Caldwell said in a news conference. “My vision of looking at this team is this is going into our first year. We’ve got to correct this and make sure that, regardless of how people got there, they have to live up to their abilities. With that being said, I do still believe in Blake very much. The head coach will have a lot of input as to who the quarterback will be.”
Bortles, the No. 3 pick in 2014, will remain the starting quarterback for the rest of this season, Marrone said.
Caldwell declined to get into many specifics about why Brad- ley was fired beyond his record. Officials, including owner Shad Khan and Caldwell, made the decision to fire Bradley before the Houston game and said he would have been fired even if he had won. The fact that the Los Angeles Rams fired Jeff Fisher last week accelerated the decision on from Bradley.
“We didn’t want to be left behind. I think it started our conversation, mine and Shad’s conversation about it. At the end of the day, I think when we made the decision, we felt like we had to do it,” Caldwell said.