Deft ingenuity led Kahn, Jags to success
Jarrett Bell: Owner pieced together Jaguars’ unconventional front office
JACKSONVILLE – Shad Khan is, by nature, an out-of-the-box thinker.
It’s not like there’s a manual to instruct an immigrant arriving from Pakistan decades ago — Khan was a college engineering student, virtually broke — how to revolutionize a segment of the auto parts industry and become one of the richest people in the world.
It took a lot of hustle and some deft ingenuity.
The same principles apply in the NFL. Khan’s Jacksonville Jaguars — he purchased them in 2011 — are one victory from the first Super Bowl trip in the
franchise’s 23-season history. Sure, the Jags are stocked with prime young talent after floundering for years at the bottom of the NFL.
Yet the moves Khan made last offseason, luring two-time Super Bowl-winning coach Tom Coughlin back to Jacksonville for an executive role and pairing him with new coach Doug Marrone and holdover general manager Dave Caldwell, have proved to be the formula that was needed to put the franchise on the fast track to success.
“Conventional wisdom says that you hire the general manager, then hire the coach,” Khan told USA TODAY this week, as the Jaguars prepared to face the New England Patriots in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.
“That’s too simplistic. We wanted to have a sharp eye — someone who’s been there, done that — and team him up with someone with a similar drive and passion. (Coughlin) was perfect.”
A year ago, Coughlin, dumped by the New York Giants after the 2015 season, still wanted to coach. Coughlin, 71, would not agree to an interview this week — texting to USA TODAY, “All the credit goes to Doug, his staff and the players” — but last spring admitted that one of the challenges in his new role would come with not having day-to-day control of the team.
“He had to decide that he wanted to do this,” Khan remembers.
Khan’s next question for Coughlin: “Who would you want as coach?”
Marrone, the offensive line coach for two years and interim head man last season after Gus Bradley was fired, was Khan’s choice. But he had to know that Coughlin, a Syracuse alum like Marrone, could flow with that.
“I didn’t want to put them together like a forced marriage,” Khan said.
When Coughlin told him he wanted Marrone, Khan remembers telling him, “OK, Tom, hold that thought.”
Then Khan called Marrone to offer the job — with the attached string of Coughlin serving as executive vice president of football operations.
“He went nuts ... in a great way,” Khan remembers of the call with Marrone, who had no idea that Coughlin was in the mix.
Going nuts, Marrone recalled Thursday, meant blurting out an expletive to Khan.
“It was like, ‘Oh (crap)! I can’t believe I said that to the owner,” Marrone told USA TODAY. “But I was fired up. One, I was going to get the job. Two, I’d be working for Tom.”
There’s some mystery regarding the specifics of Coughlin’s role, although Marrone is effusive in vouching for such a valuable resource. With his aw-shucks public demeanor, Marrone teases that he talks more to Coughlin than to his wife during the football season.
“We talk first thing in the morning,” Marrone said, “then several times every day.”
Marrone feels fortunate to have an in-house guru. Although players have little direct contact with Coughlin, his principles evidently flow through the operation. There’s more discipline and accountability than in previous years, players insist, and when quarterback Blake Bortles mentioned that it’s now standard that players arrive five minutes early for meetings, it stoked memories of the “Coughlin Time” rules that defined his coaching stints with the Jaguars and Giants.
Still, it’s not like Marrone, who once headed the program at Syracuse and coached the Buffalo Bills for two seasons, is a rookie. Asked if there’s another layer of pressure amid perceptions he works in Coughlin’s shadow, Marrone laughed.
“I’ve never been the boss, just so you know,” he said. “I’ve got one at home, and when I go home with my wife, my father-in-law (James “Boots” Donnelly, the longtime football coach at Middle Tennessee State) is the boss. Or my mother-in-law, depending on the situation. When I visit my parents, they’re the boss. I’m never the boss. So it’s the same.”
Marrone’s players might beg to differ, considering his reputation as a disciplinarian. Regardless, he contends the connection with Coughlin works because they have a similar football philosophy — reflected by a team built around physical play in the trenches and a top-ranked rushing attack fueled by star rookie Leonard Fournette.
“It’s like he knows where I want to go,” Marrone said. “And he can help get me there.”
What a week to have Coughlin in the house. The only two Super Bowls the Bill Belichick/Tom Brady Patriots lost were to Coughlin’s Giants. Now comes another chance for Coughlin to land on the big stage.
And he’s making Khan look like a genius.
Khan, lamenting a “six-year journey, with a lot of lows,” sought input from various voices within the league as he searched for the right chemistry. Ultimately, his own instincts led him to pursue Coughlin, who, during his first stint in Jacksonville, led the Jags to two AFC title games.
“Last year, the thing that was lacking was that we needed some veteran leadership,” Khan said.
“You want to build an elite team that competes for championships? Your chances are better if you do it with someone who’s done it.”