The Jacksonville Jaguars parted ways with head coach Doug Pederson one day after the loss to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2024 season finale. The decision isn't particularly shocking when you take into account that the Jags failed to make the playoffs for two straight years and have progressively gotten worse. What stood out is that owner Shad Khan chose a half-measure approach and kept general manager Trent Baalke.
Following Pederson's dismissal, Jacksonville already began to look for his replacement, but based on Khan's handling of the process, it has the potential to go off rails.
Khan met the local media after firing Pederson and cited a change of direction and lack of results as the reasons for the decision. Later in the exchange, he said that an overhaul wasn't necessary, but that's when things took a turn. The owner was asked why he chose to part ways with his head coach but not Trent Baalke and went off on a tangent on why it wasn't necessary to give the medical staff or accounting a makeover.
"What's a complete overhaul of a franchise? If you look at it, health and wellness of the players, medical, statistics, analysis, scouting, number of other elements, along with, contract administration, " Khan said. "All of those areas. We have really changed and improved, certainly over the last four or five years."
Khan continued, "To change all of that is almost like suicidal, that you've got 85 people working on that side, and you say, I'm going to get rid of them and find 85 new people, they're going to be better than that. That's that's like shooting yourself in the foot. I mean, we need to go to work on something that is broken, that needs to be fixed, and continually be improving things that are working."
While it's true that getting rid of the whole staff would be counterproductive, Khan was being asked about the general manager position in particular, not the team's entire payroll. In fact, it would be unheard of for an NFL franchise to do such a thing.
Later in the exchange, Khan said that he's pleased with the work Baalke has done, pointing out that they've acquired several building blocks.
"I think if you look at the body of work, and certainly over the last five years, you look at the building piece of building blocks of players we have, we're building the team around. You look at our salary cap, you know, you look at the number of draft picks we have now, and also making sure that our key players are, you know, getting paid, all of that has happened. And you know we haven't mortgaged our future, so to speak.
On the other hand, Khan isn't opposed to getting rid of Baalke if an aspiring candidate believes there's someone better.
"How would you improve it? And then, if it is credible, you want to do it. Okay? So how does a structure work? I just want to make sure that this isn't about ego or power or something more sinister by franking. And there have been some of those elements that I found in my experience in the NFL. I mean, if it's a legit effort to get better than everything you know, it should be on the table."
Those remarks contradict Khan's previous comments about Baalke being the right general manager. Think about it, if he was fully confident in his general manager, why would he consider getting rid of him?
Keeping Trent Baalke could affect the Jaguars even if they fire him later in 2025
There's chatter that Trent Baalke is safe now but the Jacksonville Jaguars could move on from him at some point in the upcoming months. Benjamin Allbright of KOA Colorado, for instance, believes that keeping him around for the moment doesn't mean he won't get fired.
There’s a difference in keeping someone and not firing them yet.
— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) January 6, 2025
You don’t NEED someone being a head coach right now, you do need a general manager to coordinate and keep all the front office and scouting activities going. https://t.co/Tdhvyq3xYs
In theory, the Jags could let Baalke oversee free agency and the draft and fire him afterward. They could then bring in a new general manager, but if that's the case, why not do it now? Why wait to bring in his replacement in a few months instead of letting him handle the offseason moves?
On the other hand, keeping Baalke around beyond 2025 doesn't guarantee success. His presence could be a turnoff for some of the top head-coaching candidates. In fact, one of them has already stated that he's less inclined to take the job with the Jaguars because of the controversial general manager.
But for the sake of the argument, let's say, the Jags move on from Baalke after the draft. The New York Jets tried that in 2019 when they kept general manager Mike Maccagnan, hired Adam Gase as their head coach, and later that year, replaced Maccagnan with Joe Douglas. It didn't work.
This is a roundabout way to say that firing Doug Pederson and not firing Trent Baalke was a mistake, and the head-coaching search has the potential to go off the rails because of it.