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The Jacksonville Jaguars appear to be hiring interim head coach and offensive line coach Doug Marrone as the full time head coach according to multiple reports in the media. Now that the head coach situation has an answer, the question is what’s next for the Jaguars? Will the Jaguars retain offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett? Will the team retain defensive coordinator Todd Wash?
I can’t imagine the team goes into the 2017 offseason keeping both the same offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and staff. That’s an awful hard sell that the entire problem was Gus Bradley and Gus Bradley alone. While it’s an easy narrative to tell, there were still a lot of issues even in the two games that Marrone was the interim head coach.
Just looking at the situation I think we can assume that Hackett remains the offensive coordinator for the Jaguars. He’s been the coordinator for Marrone at previous spots and Bortles seemed to have a good working relationship with Hackett. While the offense was still not good when Hackett took over, some things did eventually change and in the final two games of the season, the offense looked completely different when Marrone took over as the coach and assuming Hackett was given more freedom for wholesale changes. We also have to remember that Hackett hasn’t actually run his offense for the Jaguars, so expect something a little different next season for the Jaguars on that front, regardless if Hackett is here or not.
On the defensive side of the football, I think Marrone has to clean house. Yeah, Todd Wash helped make the Jaguars defense finish Top 10 in the NFL, there were a lot of frustrated players speaking out about their roles at the end of the season about the defensive scheme. In Marrone’s previous stint as a head coach with the Buffalo Bills he ran a 3-4 defense with Mike Pettine and Jim Schwartz, so I wonder if there will be some interest in someone like Wade Phillips, who’s contract with the Denver Broncos is expiring.
Again, if the move is literally just replacing Gus Bradley with Doug Marrone, then…