Trent Baalke did not think Cris Carter would offer much to Jaguars staff

Not many NFL head coaches would pass up the chance to add a Hall-of-Fame player to their staff. Who wouldn’t want someone that performed at the highest level to share their knowledge of the game in their team? Apparently, Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke didn’t. That’s what former NFL wide receiver and eight-time Pro Bowl wide receiver and Hall-of-Fame inductee Cris Carter said recently said.

Carter appeared on NFL Media’s Good Morning Football and said that former Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer invited him to join his coaching staff last year. However, Baalke vetoed the move, as he didn’t see the value the Minnesota Vikings legend would bring to the organization. Here’s Carter’s recollection of the situation.

"Urban Meyer coached me at Ohio State, 1986. He was my wide receiver coach. So last year, he gets the Jacksonville job. Me and Urban have extensive conversations. We have a conversation about me joining the support staff. He said ‘I like the idea, like the concept’. He said, ‘can you write it up for me?’ So I go to my boy Chris Spielman. He’s one of my college teammates back from Ohio. He’s working in Detroit. He’s special assistant to the owner, to the Ford family in Detroit. ‘How do you do this Chris? How do I set it up? How do I write it up, roles and responsibilities?’ I give him a whole treatment send it to Urban, Urban likes. He said a couple of weeks, we’re going to bring you up here, once you meet the owner and meet Trent Baalke. Urban calls me two days later, Trent Baalke killed it, said he didn’t see the skillset, he didn’t see the value that you bring to the organization. I said ‘well, Urban, I don’t know what you and Trent Baalke have been doing since 1987 but the last five decades I’ve been associated with the national football league’."

Carter says he would’ve been Meyer’s eyes and ears. He believes that if he had been on the Jaguars’ coaching staff, there’s no way they would’ve lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 4. Moreover, he wouldn’t have let Meyer stay in Ohio and would’ve gotten him on that plane back to Jacksonville.

Cris Carter would have been a great addition to the Jaguars’ staff.

Just to be clear, Carter would’ve helped Meyer intensively but it’s likely that things would’ve played almost the same and the head coach would still get the boot. Would he have stopped him from ‘babysitting‘ the weekend after the Jags’ loss to Cincy? Absolutely, but Meyer would have still found a way to get himself fired, as he wasn’t prepared to make the leap from college to the pros.

On the other hand, that goes to show that Baalke doesn’t have a good eye for talent. Former NFL fullback and Super Bowl winner Michael Robinson shared an anecdote about the time the general manager released him back he was with the San Francisco 49ers. Robinson went on to make the Pro Bowl and win a championship with the Seattle Seahawks. However, Baalke didn’t think he would add anything to the Niners. Does that sound familiar? Carter was highly productive during his 15-year career in the NFL, catching 1,101 receptions for 13,899 yards with 130 touchdowns. He would’ve surely brought something to the table.

Based on what Carter and Robinson say, it looks like Baalke has a narrow-minded view of who can or can’t help a team, regardless of the role. Don’t you think DJ Chark Jr., Laviska Shenault Jr., and the rest of the Jaguars wide receivers would’ve loved to get pointers from the two-time All-Pro designation? Also, he could have played a mentorship role given his experience of substance abuse early in his career, which led to his eventual release from the Philadelphia Eagles.

It would’ve been great to see Carter be on the Jaguars’ coaching staff but the broader point is that it would make sense for the organization to keep Baalke if he had an outstanding eye for talent but that might not be the case.