A Shift in Jaguars Culture

If there were a combine report on the 2024 Jaguars, you’d think they were a lock to win the Super Bowl. They could run, they were fast, they could jump, and they could bench press forever. But could they play football? Not very well. That’s where talent evaluators differ in any sport. Are you focused on how fast a guy is in the 40? (almost a useless metric) Or, as Bobby Bowden used to say, is he faster than whatever’s chasing him?

Prior to the season, Jaguars owner Shad Khan said the 2024 roster was “the best team in Jaguars history.” He should have asked somebody about that before making that statement, because the 1999 team is easily the best team in Jaguars history. Last year’s squad could have been the best collection of talent in the last thirty years, but they weren’t the best team, not even close.

You could walk into any locker room or clubhouse in any sport and almost instantly tell if that collection of players was a team or not. Former Jaguars Head Coach Tom Coughlin used to say they had to have “an intense affection for one another.” While that sounded strange, it’s absolutely true. Players have to play for each other, care for each other, and want to win for each other. In order to achieve that, leadership has to emerge among the players. It can’t come from the front office or from the coaching staff, it has to come from in that locker room.

“It’s just creating a culture,” Dwayne Smoot said after Sunday’s win over Carolina. “This camp was one of the most physical camps I’ve had. So that’s just a culture we’re trying to build here is to be as physical as we can.”

And the Jaguars had none of that in 20204.

You might think it always comes from the quarterback, but that’s not the case. Trevor Lawrence had to deal with injuries last year, but he’s not the rah-rah guy or the “enforcer” in any situation. Neither was Mark Brunell on the most successful teams in the late ‘90’s. Tony Boselli was. So was John Jurkovic, and Clyde Simmons and in a certain way, guys like Tom McManus carried the load by example. Maybe not in games, but in the locker room and the weight room and on the sidelines sometime in the third quarter when the tone of the game is decided. Calais Campbell was that guy for the Jaguars during their run in 2017. It wasn’t Blake Bortles. Campbell kept everybody straight, even Yannick Ngakoue.

And that’s what the Jaguars have been lacking since they traded Calais while he was the Walter Peyton Man of the Year. And never more glaring than last year. Even Lawrence called his team “fragile.” When the hole opened up, there wasn’t anybody to stand in it and say, “Me or you, and it’s going to hurt.” (Lonnie Marts asked me to amend that statement to say, “But I’m going to make sure it hurts more for you than me!”) And this isn’t a criticism of Lawrence, or Foye Oluokun or Dewey Wingard. They aren’t that type of person. Maybe Dewey a bit but he didn’t have a big enough role in the past.

That’s why this 2025 team looks and acts differently. Previous GM’s and personnel directors studied height and weight, speed and size. They valued draft capital. Current GM James Gladstone and Boselli, in his role as VP value players. Why else would they sign an eight-year veteran free-agent like linebacker Dennis Gardeck? There’s nothing in his career that screams “we need him” except that he’s a football player. A culture guy, a locker room guy, a weight room guy. He knows how to get through an NFL season. He’s been on winning and losing teams. That’s why they acquired Khalen Saunders from New Orleans and Tim Patrick from Detroit. They’re football players.

Call it toughness, call it whatever you want, but new Head Coach Liam Coen has been talking about a shift in the culture since his first day in January.

“When you can start there and say, guys, look, if this is going to be part of our DNA, for it to show up in Week 1 matters,” he said on Monday. “It does matter because a lot of the things that you’re preaching did show up.”