Talented and Good Are Not the Same in The NFL

It still seems backwards.

I’m trying not to let the fact that Doug Pederson is a nice guy color my thoughts about this but Jaguars Owner Shad Khan’s decision to fire Doug and retain Trent Baalke as the General Manager seems like the opposite of what was necessary. In fact, it’s the third of three changes I’d have probably made in Shad’s shoes.

First, I’d have gotten rid of Baalke. He’s a dividing force inside the Jaguars offices. Insiders say he’s tough to work with and creates adversaries among co-workers who are supposed to be on the same team, “A culture vulture,” one Jaguars employee described him as when asked what his problem has been. “He sucks your organization dry.”

From personal experience, Baalke has a lot of hubris when discussing football. He’s almost haughty when I’ve asked a question, the unspoken “given” in his response is, “I’m smarter than you. I know more than you so how dare you ask that question.”

Second, I’d have asked Doug to change both coordinators and stay on. If he said no, I’d have told him he’d have to go as well.

Third, I’d have just cleaned out everybody. But Shad hates paying people not to work, despite it being a fact of life in the football business.

Apparently, Khan never considered a clean sweep. Listening in on the Zoom press conference Shad and Baalke held on Monday afternoon, Khan expressed a lot of confidence in their “organization.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘clean sweep,’” Shad said when asked if he considered getting rid of everybody. “We have eighty-five people in the football organization who are doing their jobs. What? You’re going to go out and find eighty-five better? Overall, our organization is pretty good. We need to fix what needs to be fixed now.”

Baalke chimed in, “We don’t need to fix everything, we just need to fix some things.”

Hubris and smugness are the usual downfall of most leaders who don’t last, and it won’t surprise me if that’s Baalke’s eventual Waterloo as well. But for now, he has Shad’s confidence.

And that could be part of the problem. A meeting among the staff last week brought Shad a consensus that a full reset was necessary. But he disregarded that, apparently, he doesn’t have enough confidence in the opinion of the rest of the people in the building.

Khan talked in the presser about Baalke’s “Body of work, the metrics, the salary cap and how he leaned on other NFL owners, and people in the NFL organization to help him come to the conclusion that Pederson had to go.

And that breaks it down to its essence. It’s not those things that make a winning organization. It’s culture and leadership. The Jaguars are the most talented bad football team I’ve ever seen. Baalke has shown he can evaluate talent; he hasn’t shown he can build a team.

Former Jaguars Head Coach Tom Coughlin, a two-time Super Bowl winner with the New York Giants explained that to me in 2000.

“You’ve got the top of the roster. Those are the players you expect to make the play ten out of ten times. When the game’s on the line, you want the ball in their hands,” he began. “And some of them are leaders who set the culture and tone for the rest of the team.” Think Tony Boselli. Paul Posluszny, Calais Campbell or even Leon Searcy. Would you get in a fight with Leon? I think not. Any starter on this Jaguars team willing to wave Jason Taylor down to the other end of the field on Monday Night Football a la Boselli? No.

“In the middle of the roster you have the spot starters, those who are going to make the plays most of the time and can perhaps develop into ‘top of the roster’ players,” he continued. “They’re subs, stalwarts on special teams, guys who push the starters to be better.” Here’s where Gary Walker, Lonnie Marts and Tom McManus come to mind, although they were mainly starters. Dewey Wingard is the only guy on the Jaguars roster who fits this description.

Then he got to the crux of building a team, without perhaps even knowing it.

“At the bottom of the roster, you have guys who are very talented, great athletes, or they wouldn’t be in the NFL. But they didn’t make it on talent alone. They have grit, they want to mix it up. They’re the tough guys, the ‘stand in the hole and make it hurt’ kind of players. They’re in the weight room competing. They end up holding everybody else accountable for their toughness. Football is a tough game.” There are dozens of former Jaguars who fit this description. You could put McManus in this slot, Jeff Kopp, Montell Owens, Brant Boyer.

The Jaguars have a lot of top of the roster guys, but none are the leaders or culture builders they need. They have some middle of the roster guys. They have zero bottom of the roster guys.

To build a culture you need continuity. Ever notice how the Pittsburgh Steelers always seem to have the same guys, just different names? Greg Lloyd is James Harrison, just with a different name. Mike Tomlin sets the tone for that, and the Rooney family has preached continuity forever. In the last fifty-four years, they’ve had three head coaches. Three: Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin. And Tomlin has never had a losing record. What’s that tell you? He demands the players meet a certain standard. You don’t fit, you’re gone.

Look what Dan Campbell has done in Detroit. He only accepted tough guys on his team, from the starters on down. When you watch them play, they hit, they play with a sense of urgency we haven’t seen since 2017 and rarely before that as well.

Hiring a new Head Coach for the Jaguars will be tricky with Baalke in place. Khan didn’t answer the question directly when asked if the new head coach would report to him. “Doug reported to me, Trent reports to me, that worked,” was his answer.

I did like some of the things Shad said but can’t decide whether they were talking points put together by his PR team or what he actually thinks.

“We’re the most predictable team in the NFL on both sides of the ball,” Khan said about why he made a coaching change. He’s right about that. “We were twentieth in the league on defense last year, this year we’re last. Part of success in the NFL is deception, and we need that.”

What about if a coach comes in and says the Jaguars need to revamp the personnel side? “We have to create an environment for them to be successful. If we can get better, I want to listen to that. I know we can improve.”

And what’s the pitch to a new Head Coach? “We have a compelling case to offer somebody as our head coach,” he responded. “The personnel, the facilities, the health and wellness of the players. We’ll interview them and they’ll interview us. I want to make sure this isn’t about ego or power. If it’s a legit effort to get better, everything should be on the table.”

And what about hiring an Executive Vice President as part of both the personnel and football sides of the organization? “We’re lean. We need to add some people. But we need to identify the right people.”

You don’t have to look far Shad. Hire Boselli. Get Ben Johnson. Bring Mark Brunell as the offensive coordinator.