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Jacksonville Jaguars' Shad Khan looks bad for waiting to fire Trent Baalke
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- Jacksonville Jaguars' Shad Khan looks bad for waiting to fire Trent Baalke
When Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan finally pulled the trigger Wednesday and fired maligned general manager Trent Baalke , it begged one simple question: What took you so long?
It was likely no coincidence that Khan's action came hours after a second prospective head coaching candidate, Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen, pulled himself out of the running for the Jaguars' vacancy. Then on Thursday, with Baalke gone, the Jaguars reached back out to Coen and ESPN's Adam Shefter reported the two sides met Thursday for an interview.
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Firing Baalke also came 48 hours after Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, the darling of this NFL coaching cycle, decided to take the Chicago Bears' job rather than go through a second round of interviews with three teams, including the Jaguars.
But the much bigger development is Khan issuing a pink slip to a GM that was viewed in some league circles as an impediment to the coaching search , diminishing the Jaguars' chances of hiring a targeted candidate, especially if they had other options.
WHO'S NEXT? Jaguars fire GM Trent Baalke: Here are 3 candidates to replace him
Jacksonville Jaguars' general manager Trent Baalke was fired Wednesday by owner Shad Khan, not coincidentally coming after two prospective head coaching candidates decided not to return for a second interview.
It's not a reach to draw a connect-the-dots conclusion on Baalke's dismissal. Remember, this was the guy Khan appointed as head of the coaching search, and now he's done a 180-degree turn by abruptly firing him right after Coen told the Jaguars no thanks.
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This was part of Khan's statement: "Following several discussions with Trent Baalke this week, we both arrived at the conclusion that is in our mutual best interests to respectfully separate, effective immediately."
Khan might as well have said what everybody else in the NFL and "Duu-val" was thinking: the Jaguars royally messed up on January 6 by not firing Baalke along with head coach Doug Pederson .
Instead, Khan opted for another organizational shakeup after he saw the coaching search wasn't going as smoothly as he hoped, though it's possible he could still recover and find a suitable candidate who can turn this franchise around. Coen reversing course and coming back to Jacksonville to interview is a clear indicator that Baalke was an impediment.
Still, the PR damage of keeping Baalke at least a couple weeks too long is done. Khan and the Jaguars will just have to live with the embarrassingly bad optics.
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This is just another organizational bungling that invites social media barbs and prompts fans to rightfully question whether Khan will ever get the whole ownership thing right.
He can only hope Baalke's exit — assistant GM Ethan Waugh will take over on an interim basis — makes things more palatable for candidates like former New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh on Friday and others expected to come in to interview over the next week.
DEMETRIUS HARVEY: Jaguars firing Trent Baalke underscores coaching search failures
Khan's patience a detriment this time
As much as the Jaguars need an authoritative, take-charge head coach to make the franchise relevant again, Khan was remiss in not adopting that quality himself in this situation.
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He had the perfect opportunity on Black Monday to hit the reset button on the franchise and didn't take it. That was his Nero moment, fiddling while Jacksonville and much of the team's fan base burned in disgust.
Khan decided that Pederson and his coaching staff was the main reason why the Jaguars went 4-13, not Baalke's performance in the front office .
As he said on a Zoom call after Pederson's dismissal , with his GM listening while sitting stoically from a different location: "The coaching, that is an area that we need to fix now. Over the last few years, we built a football administration and a lot of things are working well there."
Apparently, not as well as he thought because once Coen initially turned down the Jaguars down, Khan pivoted and did the very thing Baalke critics have been begging him to do way back since the Urban Meyer fiasco in 2021 .
Jets co-owner Christopher Johnson, Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan and Jets co-owner Woody Johnson speak before a Dec. 15 game.
That would have been premature a rush to judgment, seeing as how Baalke held the permanent GM post less than a year at that point. He has by no means done a terrible job evaluating and picking players. It just hasn't been good enough.
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But the way the 2024 season went down and seeing how an exasperated Pederson had no answers for the team's malaise, things were set up nicely for Khan to send Baalke packing and allow prospective coaching candidates to feel they would have a say in picking a GM. He took a pass.
Khan has that benefit now, but it came at the expense of putting the Jaguars through the shame of the whole NFL world seeing how he dragged his feet, potentially losing a candidate that might have been their future coach.
None of us knew for certain on Wednesday whether Johnson or Coen would have taken that second interview if Baalke was already gone, but now we do know because Coen apparently called an audible and is back in the race.
Coen rejection was moment of no return
There was already a Chicken Little sky-is-falling reaction from many Jaguars' fans when Johnson decided he didn't want to be part of the "Duu-val" experience, instead accepting the Bears job.
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Johnson, the uber-creative offensive play-caller who was also highly coveted by the Las Vegas Raiders and minority owner Tom Brady , did the right thing.
Opting to go to Chicago, within an NFC North division in which he was intimately familiar, and having a promising young quarterback in Caleb Williams was quite understandable. It was a logical choice.
But when the news came down Wednesday that Coen declined to take a second interview with the Jaguars, that raised a legitimate red flag.
As in, "Hmmm, does this franchise have an image problem that needs to be addressed" kind of red flag?
It's not because Coen had become the presumed favorite to be the Jaguars' next coach by some in the NFL media, though that would require reading Khan's highly unpredictable mind. We all know how terribly wrong many people have been on that front.
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No, what makes this development alarming is the 39-year-old Coen initially passed up a potential head coaching opportunity, one which he's not guaranteed to have next year or in the future.
Jaguars owner Shad Khan looks on during a December game against the New York Jets.
The Johnson rejection to take the Bears' job was one thing, this was quite another.
Coen, who has done a marvelous job developing Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield to career highs last season and improved Tampa Bay 's scoring output by an astounding 9.1 points per game, isn't being coveted for any of the other NFL vacancies.
It came down to pursuing the Jaguars' opening or staying another year as the Bucs OC. He first declined a second interview, which would have cost him nothing and probably been a valuable experience even if he didn't land the job.
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That's why this search is becoming one strange twist after another. This was supposed to be an exciting process, not trending toward a DEFCON 1 situation. But at least now, Coen reversing course after the Baalke firing instills some optimism for Jaguars' fans wanting an offensive-minded coach for quarterback Trevor Lawrence .
Before Coen changed his mind about turning down the Jaguars and staying in Tampa, you had to wonder if the Jaguars' job is as desirable in some NFL circles as it was made out to be before the coaching carousel started spinning.
Most pundits listed the vacancies in Chicago and Jacksonville among the top openings, but one of them wasn't looking so good until Coen decided to throw his hat back in the ring.
Khan under pressure to make things right
Two prospective head coaching candidates initially declining to take a second Jaguars' interview, albeit for different reasons, and Baalke being out of the way turns up the heat on Khan considerably.
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He knows whoever he hires, they won't be perceived as a home-run hire like Johnson, though Coen's success last season as the Buccaneers' play-caller makes him an attractive candidate.
Maybe Khan turns to Saleh, a former Jaguars linebackers coach (2014-16), providing he, too, doesn't get cold feet for some mysterious reason.
I've already written Saleh would be an ideal choice because he's the kind of authoritative leader the Jaguars need as a culture-changer. Granted, there are obvious concerns about his awful Jets' experience and who he would hire in the critical offensive coordinator role to get Lawrence ascending again.
There are also a couple 30-something offensive coordinators the Jaguars have already spoken with still in the NFL playoffs, the Buffalo Bills ' Joe Brady and the Philadelphia Eagles ' Kellen Moore, that could also land the gig.
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Who knows what direction this Jaguars' search takes, but it's abundantly clear Khan is under greater scrutiny than ever to find the right solution. He's unquestionably facing his biggest PR mess since Meyer sabotaged his own career with radically poor judgment. If Coen is eventually hired, that would at least minimize some of that damage.
As Lawrence approaches what should be his career prime in the next 5-7 years, the Jaguars cannot afford to allow his development to stagnate. The best way to avoid that happening is to hire the right coach and GM.
Mayor Donna Deegan and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan talk upon arriving at the Miller Electric Center for a June media event.
Jaguars must shed incompetent image
No matter who the Jaguars hire to replace Pederson, it's going to look like that coach is their second, third or fourth choice, which will have no bearing on whether he can succeed and turn around Khan's dreadful 67-150 record (.309) over 13 seasons as owner.
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Khan has a lot of decisions to make in the coming weeks. He's got to sift through several coaching candidates, and it's premature to think Saleh or anybody else is the clubhouse leader, though Coen will be regarded in that light now that he has reversed course.
The Jaguars must essentially play matchmaker, figuring out which coach and GM will be the right fit. It's doubtful Khan simply promotes Waugh to permanent GM, seeing as how that strategy turned out with Baalke, but you never know what he might do.
Not that the Jaguars want to rush the process, but there must be a little bit of two-minute offense mode mindset here.
The NFL Combine is five weeks away, followed by free agency in mid-March and the NFL draft (April 24-26). That's not a lot of time for a new GM and coach to get on the same page about which players to bring in to start building a culture.
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For now, Khan must get to work on fixing the mess that he largely created by his own incompetence, something deep down he knows without reservation.
Just because Trent Baalke is gone doesn't mean the Jaguars' problems are over. There's no guarantee Khan finally coming to his senses on this divorce will be like sprinkling magic fairy dust on the franchise.
It's just a step in the right direction, one that should have been taken back when the ax fell on Pederson.
Gfrenette@jacksonville.com : (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Jaguars Shad Khan corrects mistake by firing Trent Baalke
