Report: Jaguars will retain Trent Baalke as G.M.
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The Jaguars have unofficially limited the potential universe of head coaches to succeed Urban Meyer.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that G.M. Trent Baalke will participate in the search for a new coach, and that he will be retained moving forward. Both Baalke and the next coach will report directly to owner Shad Khan.
This decision means that any coach who would want to hire his own personnel specialist will be less likely to be interested in the job. The price of getting the gig now includes accepting that Baalke will be the G.M.
A holdover from the Dave Caldwell regime, Baalke was essentially hired by Meyer. The new coach won’t have that luxury.
Khan presumably realizes the practical impact of making such a decision. He’s basically delegating much of the authority over the hire to Baalke, and he’s ensuring that whoever takes the job will be fine working with the former 49ers G.M.
Once the hire is made, the fact that both coach and G.M. will report to Khan sets the stage for potential dysfunction, with the coach blaming failure on a lack of talent and the G.M. blaming struggles on the coach’s failure to get the most out of the talent that has been acquired.
The best approach for any NFL team continues to be shared accountability of the coach and the head of personnel. Both succeed or both fail. Both stay or both go. In Jacksonville, that may not be the case once a new coach is hired.
