
The Jacksonville Jaguars’ initial unwillingness to part ways with former general manager Trent Baalke had a huge ripple effect in their head coaching search, according to NFL insider Albert Breer.
Delaying this move pushed away two of the top candidates in this hiring cycle and nearly cost the Jaguars Liam Coen.
As the Jaguars’ head coaching search unfolded, Ian Rapoport reported that Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn were two candidates “very high up” on Jacksonville’s wish list. The fact that both took interviews with the team illustrated that, to some degree, the feeling was mutual.
However, a common thread with Johnson and Glenn in Breer’s reporting is the uneasiness of having Baalke as the general manager.
“My belief is that Ben Johnson was very high on the Jaguars’ job—high enough on it to have taken the interview with Jacksonville even before they let Baalke go,” wrote Breer. “Jacksonville was high on Johnson, too, enough so to discuss making a big-money offer. But in the end, I’m not sure Johnson wanted to have to push Baalke out to go there.”
With Glenn, his representatives made it known that bringing in their own personnel member was apart of the equation. Baalke, however, was uneasy about that.
“Also, Glenn’s camp expressed some desire to bring a personnel guy along, if the Lions’ DC were to take the job, and Baalke balked at that because of how it’d affect his No. 2, Tom Gamble,” added Breer.
Coen was asked during his introductory press conference if the Jaguars moving on from Baalke had anything to do with him throwing his hat back into the ring after initially withdrawing from contention. Coen said that it did not–although the timing of it all suggests otherwise, but we’ll likely never know that for certain.
While Baalke’s presence made landing a head coaching seemingly a much more difficult task for the Jaguars, Breer also added that Baalke did talk with owner Shad Khan about not wanting to impede the Jaguars’ search.
“After all that, one thing I did hear was that Baalke did have a real conversation, to his credit, with ownership, not wanting to be an impediment anymore,” wrote Breer.
It was a wild and, to a degree, unprecedented ride to get to this point where Coen is the Jaguars’ head coach. But as Breer said, if the success Coen had in Tampa Bay translates to Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars offense, nothing just discussed will matter.