Future Jaguars head coach Bill Belichick?
It is too soon to say. Disappointing as Jacksonville’s start to the 2024 season has been, Doug Pederson remains the franchise’s head coach entering Week 4, while Belichick has ventured onto a television career path in his first year away from NFL coaching since he started in 1975.
But that did not stop Sports Illustrated NFL insider Albert Breer from laying out his belief that Jacksonville, 0-3 to begin its campaign, could pursue the six-time Super Bowl-winning former New England leader on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday, should Pederson eventually be let go.
Breer began by assessing where things stand for Pederson, general manager Trent Baalke and ultimately Jaguars owner Shad Khan. The trio is zero wins and three losses into a campaign with what Khan described as “the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever,” in the preseason.
“It feels to me a little bit like a franchise that may be in for another reset,” Breer said before suggesting the next few weeks will be critical for Jacksonville’s football brass, as they include meetings with AFC South rivals Houston and Indianapolis before facing Chicago and New England in London.
Breer highlighted the Jaguars’ commitment to playing in London yearly as a potential motivation for Khan to shake things up.
“If you have a winless team going over there — these billionaires don’t like being embarrassed,” Breer said. “It feels like there’s a lot on the line for a lot of people in that organization over the next few weeks.”
Patrick pressed Breer on the idea of Jacksonville moving on from Pederson, leading Breer to pinpoint Belichick as a potential target for Jacksonville’s hypothetical head coach opening in 2025.
Breer connected two important dots, identifying a relationship between Belichick and Jaguars’ ownership, specifically with Khan’s son, Jacksonville’s chief football strategy officer Tony Khan.
“They’re just a sneaky one with Belichick for me,” Breer expressed. “Tony Khan has a really strong relationship with Belichick, Shad’s son, Tony. To the point where — so when [Jacksonville] hired [former head coach] Doug Marrone full-time, when they removed the interim tag in what, 2017 I think, right? That was largely on the advice of Bill Belichick to do it.
“So Bill has had the ear of ownership in that place for a while now. I just wonder if that’s not rattling around in the heads of ownership there now.”
Under Khan, the Jaguars went 1-4 against the Belichick-led Patriots between 2012-22. The most memorable matchup came in the 2017-18 AFC Championship, when quarterback Tom Brady and the New England offense scored 14 unanswered fourth-quarter points (with help from the referees, even Brady has suggested) to clinch a 24-20 victory.
Belichick and Brady secured their eighth of nine Super Bowl appearances together by beating Jacksonville that postseason. New England fell to Philadelphia — coached then by Pederson — in the big game, 41-33.
The Patriots returned to the Super Bowl a year later and defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 13-3.
Brady left New England to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, and Belichick mutually parted ways with the franchise this past January, the latter finishing his tenure with a 296-133 record including the playoffs.
Breer made one final point in linking the Jaguars with Belichick: The agreed-upon renovations coming to Jacksonville’s EverBank Stadium, leaning into the marketing appeal of hiring a guaranteed future Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach.
“Especially when you’re building a new stadium — not a new stadium, but you’re renovating your stadium. And now you’ve got like sponsorships to sell, you’ve got suites to sell. All of that stuff, right? Do you need some more credibility?” Breer pondered.
“There’s some things that line up there where I wouldn’t totally rule out that as a viable possibility for Belichick in 2025. And he does have a place I think right down the street, I guess right down I-95 there in South Florida too, so that wouldn’t hurt either.”
Watch Patrick and Breer’s segment about the Jaguars from Tuesday below.
.@AlbertBreer explains why he wouldn’t totally rule out the possibility of the #Jaguars pursuing Bill Belichick for the 2025 season. pic.twitter.com/yCEIHUpSVb
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) September 24, 2024
