In past years, the Jacksonville Jaguars hired executives and coaches with past NFL experience in hopes of recreating the success they had with their previous teams. However, they bucked the trend when they assembled their coaching staff and front office following the ousting of Doug Pederson and Trent Baalke. Now, the Jags are expecting one of the youngest cores in the whole league to turn things around.
Whereas Pederson led the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl and Baalke turned the San Francisco 49ers into a contender in the early 2010s, their replacements in Jacksonville are holding their respective positions for the first time.
The Jaguars hired Liam Coen after he turned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers into an offensive powerhouse. On the other hand, they poached James Gladstone from the Los Angeles Rams after playing a massive role in giving their scouting process a massive overhaul.
Leaving aside that both Coen and Gladstone are first-time head coaches and general managers, respectively, they're extremely young. Coen is 39 while Gladstone is 34. But wait! There's more.
Offensive coordinator Grant Udinksi is 29, and defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile is 42. The elder of the bunch may be vice president of football operations Tony Boselli, who's 53.
Now, the Jaguars may not have intentionally hired young coaches and executives, but it's clear that they didn't want to once again try something that didn't produce sustained results and instead opted for a fresh vision.
The Jaguars could do great things with James Gladstone and Liam Coen at the helm
Granted, age is no indicator of success or lack thereof, but the fact that the Jacksonville Jaguars are trying something different is a reason for optimism. Moreover, they didn't randomly draw names from a hat. Instead, they conducted an exhaustive search to find their next head coach and general manager.
So far, the results are encouraging. Liam Coen has used a more hands-on approach to coach the Jaguars. This is in stark contrast to his predecessor, who routinely delegated coaching to his coordinators.
On the other hand, James Gladstone has put an emphasis on building through the draft instead of relying on short free-agency fixes. Moreover, he hasn't hesitated to move on from mistakes Trent Baalke made if that helps address the larger-scale roster.
Heading into the regular season, the Jaguars are flying under the radar, but if they manage to exceed expectations, everyone should look back at their decision to undergo a youth movement as the tipping point.