Jacksonville Jaguars H.C. must push all the right buttons in 2020
By David Levin
There is very little room for error this season as Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone must make this team a winner in 2020.
One of the common themes of many press conferences over the past three years is the different responsibilities regarding the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone and the general manager David Caldwell.
As Marrone has stated several times, it was Caldwell who would sign free agents and bring in players through the draft, and it was his responsibility to coach them and win football games. This year was a little bit different as the head coach had more input in personnel decisions.
Both men are walking a tight rope this coming season as they both understand the severity of why the 2020 season must be successful.
There have been many changes to the roster, with veterans being treated or released. The new regime, as it has been discussed, has worked to create a different culture where there are less drama and a commitment to finding players who are willing to buy into the team concepts Marrone and his staff have defined.
• Coaches & players, besides those players currently undergoing medical rehab, are not permitted to be at club facility, per NFL protocols.
— Tad Dickman (@TDickman89) May 26, 2020
• Also, to maintain integrity of team’s safety procedures, all non-employee visitors are also not currently permitted at @TIAABankField.
Based on the comments made by both men following the NFL draft, there was a sense of that commitment to make sure the players the Jacksonville Jaguars selected want to put in the work to become winners.
Now, with new names in the locker room, these Jaguars are set to begin the path toward changing the perception that this football team has no chance of sniffing the playoffs this coming year.
Marrone must get as much mileage out of this roster as he can, with progress being made or he may not see the 2021 season here in Jacksonville. There is a belief that change and progress won’t necessarily mean a particular win total. For the moment, Caldwell may have already planted the seeds to save his job based on a massive roster reconstruction.
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It is Marrone who now must take what has been done and changed and make it better. The onus is on better coaching and better discipline. And if he can take what is left of a locker room from last season and mix his formula with those who have joined the team like Joe Schobert, Chris Thompson, Tyler Eifert, and a strong rookie class then he too could stay through 2021.
Just so you all now. Both men have contracts expire after 2021. It’s conceivable the team owner Shad Khan would like to keep both men under contract for the next two years instead of having to pay both of them and find two replacements.
The Jaguars have Gardner Minshew under center this season. A full year will give Marrone and new offensive coordinator Jay Gruden a chance to assess whether the second-year star is the quarterback of the future. If not, then the organization is back to square one where they need to find somebody to lead the way. Gruden maybe the team’s biggest off-season acquisition. He is being charged to mold Minshew into an elite passer.
You could make the argument that Marrone hired the man who will determine his fate. And he decided to allow a second-year signal caller who still has plenty of progress to make to win and lose games, determining his own fate.
The good news for fans is this team added playmakers this off-season and shored up a porous defense. If there was a checklist of things the Jacksonville Jaguars needed to do this off-season, then they accomplished their goals.
Now it’s time to see whether Marrone can take everything that has been given to him and produce another winner. It was a contentious 2019 season. It was a mysterious and sometimes surprising 2020 off-season. It could be a surprising regular season for all the right reasons. But if the head coach cannot produce a winner, then everything else falls at his feet.
Marrone can survive a losing 2029 NFL season. But if the team loses like it did last year, then there’s no hope he returns for a final act in 2021.