The Jacksonville Jaguars hired former New York Giants and Jaguars head coach as the executive VP of Football Operations. The move was something that was floated about a few weeks ago, but after a meeting between Coughlin and Jaguars owner Shad Khan came and went with seemingly nothing doing, the idea was abandoned. Fast forward to Monday and it appears the Jaguars had the plan all along to bring Coughlin on in an executive role.
An interesting note in the new power structure of the Jaguars front office is that general manager David Caldwell, who also received a two-year extension on Monday, will report to Coughlin. As ESPN’s Michael DiRocco points out, that seems to imply that Coughlin will have final say on everything concerning the football team.
As part of restructuring with the Jaguars' hire of Tom Coughlin as executive VP of football operations, GM Dave Caldwell will report to Coughlin. Seems to indicate Coughlin will have final say over personnel issues as well as the draft but nothing definitive on that yet.
If that ends up being the case, that means that even though Caldwell was given a contract extension, he seems to have had some power stripped away from him and might end up being a glorified scouting director, delegating out who the college and pro scouts should be focusing on for reports.
Source on Coughlin's duties: "Would think he has the final say on everything." #Jaguars
— Ryan O'Halloran (@ryanohalloran) January 9, 2017
Also noteworthy for the Coughlin hire is that a source tells BigCatCountry that he indeed told the Jaguars they should retain interim head coach Doug Marrone on a permanent basis. This would seem to further confirm that Caldwell may have lost some power if Coughlin is essentially the one who hired the head coach for the Jaguars and confirm reports from a few days ago that a “Super Bowl winning coach” advised the team to stick with Marrone. Yes, that’s kind of a “no duh” at this moment, but at least now it’s confirmed.
It also brings up the question of quarterback Blake Bortles, who is the likely starter for the Jaguars in the 2017 season. It’s been reported that a big reason that Marrone ended up with the Jaguars job was because of his plan for salvaging Bortles. There’s also the fact that it was reported that Coughlin was not a fan of Bortles as a quarterback. Those two things don’t seem jive, especially if Coughlin is not a fan of Bortles and also chose Marrone as the head coach.
Needless to say, it will be interesting how things shake out now that Coughlin is essentially in control of the Jaguars franchise for the next three seasons.