Arrogance, stubbornness, and utter incompetence. The three defining characteristics of the Jacksonville Jaguars organization.
Once a team that graced the AFC championship game seven years ago, the pride of Duval County has plummeted to the level of a lower-tier FCS college football program.
All eyes were on the Jaguars heading into the team's Monday Night Football matchup in Orchard Park with the Buffalo Bills. Those eyes turned off the television before the conclusion of the first half of the play.
The contest mirrored Kennesaw State traveling to Bryant-Denny Stadium for a matchup with Alabama to secure an extensive check to fund the football program.
A Jaguars organization that has repeatedly displayed a lack of credible judgment, operational efficiency, and overall negligence regarding the operation of a professional sports team.
It starts at the top, with owner Shad Khan continuously handling his 4.6 billion dollar asset with outdated philosophies in hopes of producing a quality product on the gridiron.
This is the most embarrassing moment of Khan's tenure, outside of his prior head coach excusing himself from the team to pursue egomaniacal endeavors at a bar following a statement loss.
“Winning now is the expectation,” he said. “Make no mistake, this is the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever. Best players, best coaches. But most importantly, let’s prove it by winning now."
Khan's quote is problematic not because he said it but because he believed in the source of this information. A reality of business in sports that is constantly undervalued and overlooked is that owners make decisions based primarily on the voices speaking into their ears.
What has transpired in Jacksonville, yet again, is just another empirical point of evidence that Khan's pursuit of the sure-fire metier rather than the right thing will continue to keep this franchise irrelevant.
The kind of operational attitude that sought out Trent Baalke following the collapse of the San Francisco 49ers in the mid-2010s. A general manager who hired Chip Kelly following his egregious tenure in Philadelphia to replace the great Jim Harbaugh.
Baalke has received criticism for years in Jacksonville, and for good reason. His approach to roster construction and cap management has been mind-boggling.
The ignorance to not address the offensive line seriously during the offseason, with 33-year-old center Mitch Morse being the lone acquisition.
The decision to pay Trevor Lawrence $275 million was made despite his one playoff win and a 20-30 record as a starter since entering the league in 2021. He was a quarterback who was still a year out from his fifth-year option being on the table.
The kind of operational attitude that sought out Doug Pederson amid a frenzy of a coaching carousel following the Urban Meyer debacle.
Pederson, a coach who, outside of the 2017 Super Bowl run where the Philadelphia Eagles finished the regular season 13-3, has never won 10 games as head coach in the NFL—the modern-day Jeff Fischer.
A coach who was relieved of his duties just three years after delivering the Philadelphia Eagles its first Lombardi Trophy in franchise history.
Hires like this are a standard move within NFL ownership circles, who possess a team loaded with talent and athletic promise—a decision to opt for a coach or general manager who has been to the big dance despite apparent shortcomings in program construction and credibility.
The Dallas Cowboys are doing this with Mike McCarthy, the Denver Broncos are doing this with Sean Payton, and now the Jacksonville Jaguars are suffering from the same phenomenon.
Anyone who is an observer, fan, or pundit of sports knows that a championship-caliber coach's most remarkable ability is to lead a group of men and convince them to buy into a cultural basis.
It was made entirely evident in the back half of the 2023 season that saw the Jaguars lose five of their final six games after an 8-3 start with the number one seed in the AFC to miss the playoffs entirely; Doug Pederson has lost the team.
There is zero pulse in the Jaguars locker room—a total absence of inspiration, motivation, and leadership. It's a real issue when a fan sitting at home watching the games on their television can identify that a coach has lost the faith and trust of his team just by looking at the body language of the roster standing on the sideline.
Heads are going to begin rolling, offices are going to be cleared out, and some tough conversations are going to be had.
The Buffalo Bills game is not the last time the Jaguars will be embarrassed in 2024. Dark times will continue in Duval.