Jacksonville Jaguars believe GM Gladstone's experience with Rams will rub off

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Jacksonville Jaguars believe GM Gladstone's experience with Rams will rub off | Frenette

Gene Frenette, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union · The Florida Times-Union

Mon, Feb 24, 2025 ·

8 min read

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At Monday's press conference introducing Jacksonville Jaguars general manager James Gladstone , it was more strategic positioning than coincidence that he sat side by side with the other new power players in the franchise triumvirate: head coach Liam Coen and Executive Vice-President of football operations Tony Boselli.

To no one's surprise, they repeatedly delivered the same message about how the Jaguars' bold, transformative leadership team would consistently operate in a collaborative, aligned manner — familiar buzzwords used when previous GMs and head coaches began their honeymoon periods.

It could be all this will lead to the end goal of the Jaguars finally having a consistent, winning product , but as Boselli astutely pointed out: "We're not going to worry about the past. No matter what I tell you, we got to go prove it."

Jacksonville Jaguars General Manager James Gladstone, left, laughs with Head Coach Liam Coen, center, as explained what he was bringing to the table during a press conference Monday morning February 24, 2025 at the Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla. as Head Coach Liam Coen, right, listened as Jacksonville Jaguars Executive Vice President of Football Operations Tony Boselli cracked a joke during a press conference introducing Gladstone. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]2025

For now, all you need to know about the hiring of Gladstone, considering he spent four of his nine seasons with the same employer as Coen, is they're going to bring a heavy dose of the Los Angeles Rams ' modus operandi to Jacksonville and hope all that winning rubs off on "Duuu-val."

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Gladstone, 34, the Rams' Director of Scouting Strategy , is part of a new wave of league front-office personnel who brings creative ideas into acquiring players, which timed perfectly with Khan pivoting away from the stale leadership of previous GM Trent Baalke and coach Doug Pederson.

"Today's NFL is constantly changing," said Khan. "It's important for us to find a GM who's unafraid of change, someone who can innovate, collaborate, communicate, and evolve. All of that describes James."

The Jaguars are counting on Gladstone's timeline with the Rams, who were 4-12 in 2016 after moving from St. Louis and going 88-57 (.607) since then, repeating itself in Jacksonville.

"I see a lot of parallels to really my time with the Los Angeles Rams and the current moment in time here with the Jacksonville Jaguars , in particular dating back to sort of the inflection point in 2017 when the Los Angeles Rams were coming off a four-win season, hired a dynamic and resilient head coach [Sean McVay], and were able to follow that up with a successful season and successful seasons since," Gladstone said. "So really going to tap into all those years of experience and the different sorts of modes of operation and models that we deployed while applying here."

When you consider the last time one of Snead's disciples from his front-office tree landed a GM job, former Director of College Scouting Brad Holmes to the Detroit Lions in 2021 (37-17 record the past three years), it's easy to see why the Jaguars were intrigued by Gladstone potentially delivering those kind of results.

Exploring career out of coaching

A decade ago, Gladstone was perfectly content being the offensive coordinator (with his father, Gene, as head coach) at Clayton High in St. Louis. He wasn't actively pursuing any role in the NFL until Snead's son, Logan, ended up playing for the Jaguars' GM in 2015.

Snead's wife, Kara Henderson Snead, was so impressed with Gladstone's demeanor that she recommended to her husband that he consider hiring their son's coach as the Rams were about to relocate to Los Angeles.

Gene Gladstone, left, Kim Gladstone, second from left, wife Julie Gladstone, center, and Jacksonville Jaguars General Manager James Gladstone, second from left, poses for a picture while holding his daughter Sabine 2-1/2-years-old, right, during a press conference Monday morning February 24, 2025 at the Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]2025

During a conversation at a Starbucks in June, 2016, the Jaguars' future GM asked Snead if he would consider bringing him aboard for the sole purpose of learning about the NFL world, not knowing where it would take him.

Gladstone once described the transition as "an opportunity to gain new life experiences."

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Snead had lost his administrative assistant, so he essentially made Gladstone a go-fer, doing everything from running errands to cutting up film.

"If he had stayed in St. Louis, he probably would have won state championships," Snead told the Times-Union. "My wife and I were talking after he got the Jaguars job and she says, 'Isn't it cool that James is a GM?'

"You see people around the boss sometimes as kind of a gatekeeper, but people in our building said he didn't use working for me as a bully pulpit. James has got a different level of sight. He can lead.

"I didn't really do anything to disrupt his path [from coaching]. That kid was going to be special whatever he chose."

An "elite" communicator

Over nine seasons, Gladstone turned that one bottom-of-totem-pole NFL job opportunity into a significant ride up the Rams' personnel ladder. He was in no rush to become somebody's GM, instead focusing on his day-to-day responsibilities that became more personnel-centric as time went on.

"It was only until [Snead] raised his hand and said, 'it's time,' " said Gladstone. "At that point, when this became available, when he knew that it would be a match with Liam [Coen], with Tony [Boselli] and everybody else that you see up here, that's when we began to accelerate sort of the progress of transitioning into the next phase and becoming a general manager."

Snead went to bat with the Jaguars to promote Gladstone, especially to Boselli. It was no surprise to Snead that his protege snagged the plum job in his first attempt at chasing the position.

"Even when Boselli asked me about James being 34, he was just always one of those types that was older than most of us at that age," said Snead. "I bet when he was 15, he was going on 24. He skipped the knucklehead 20-something years. James is probably more mature at 34 than I was at 40 when I got the Rams' GM job.

"One of his traits is he's elite at communicating. I knew once he sat for an interview, the Jaguars would think, 'Ooh, this guy is real.' "

At his press conference, Gladstone struggled to maintain composure when talking about the impact of his family (wife, Julie and daughter Sabine). Then referencing the Sneads and his career ascendancy, he added: "You guys altered the trajectory of my life. Supporting you, learning from you, that was an honor of a lifetime."

Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan is firmly convinced adding newly hired GM James Gladstone to the leadership mix with head coach Liam Coen and team EVP Tony Boselli will lead to a winning path for his franchise.

Hitting some draft home runs

Among the many attractions for the Jaguars about Gladstone, which is more important to winning than anything else, is he's been on the front lines of the Rams seriously beefing up their roster the past three years.

Once Holmes left, the Rams put more on Gladstone's plate in the draft process and the results have been beyond impressive.

While Snead obviously had final say on the picks with McVay, the role Gladstone had in the Rams' draft success since 2022 — having just one first-round selection and two second-round choices — is something that had to grab the Jaguars' attention.

Among the Rams' 32 draft picks, they landed 12 current starters, including pass-rushers and former Florida State teammates Jared Verse and Braden Fiske last year, along with 10 significant backups.

Over that same period, the Jaguars landed just six starters (four were first-rounders) and 11 backups who saw decent playing time among 28 picks.

This isn't to suggest the Jaguars had bad drafts, for many picks like Brenton Strange , Tank Bigsby , Ventrell Miller , Parker Washington , Maason Smith and Javon Foster could have bigger roles next season and beyond.

But the propensity for the Rams, with plenty of input from Gladstone, to repeatedly hit on picks in the later rounds, played a huge part in their ability to sustain winning.

In 2023, after acquiring starters Steve Avila , Byron Young and nose tackle Kobie Turner in the second or third rounds, they still managed to land star rookie receiver Puka Nacua with the last of four picks (No. 177 overall) in the fifth round.

While Snead admitted they got "lucky" despite waiting so long, it was Gladstone who helped convince the brass that the odds — based on what he gleaned from other teams' draft history — were favorable that Nacua would still be on the board after using picks No. 174 and 175 on offensive lineman Warren McClendon and tight end Davis Allen .

Gladstone described that draft sequence this way: "It was strategic."

Whatever it was, the Rams struck gold with the BYU receiver. Though Nacua had injury issues in college, he ended up catching a rookie-record 105 passes for 1,486 yards and six touchdowns in starting 17 games.

The Indianapolis Colts , who had the pick before the Rams took Nacua, selected running back Evan Hull . He's no longer with the Colts and had one carry in two seasons.

Luck aside, it's decisions like that, either in the draft or free agency, that can make the difference between an NFL franchise flourishing or floundering.

Gladstone had a front-row seat to all the inner workings of the Rams' success during boss Les Snead's time with Sean McVay. He knows what a buttoned-up organization looks and feels like.

If James Gladstone can help bring that winning formula to Jacksonville, it could be the dawn of a new day for a struggling franchise.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com : (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Jaguars GM James Gladstone brings hope, acumen from Rams

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