January 23, 2025 • 59 mins
The Jacksonville Jaguars have finally moved on from General Manager Trent Baalke, marking a significant turning point for the franchise. With new hope for the future, discussions center around hiring a new General Manager and Head Coach to build a winning culture.
• Baalke's tenure ends after years of disappointment
• The need for alignment between the GM and head coach
• Trevor Lawrence as the franchise cornerstone
• Importance of a proactive approach in the NFL Draft
• Potential coaching candidates and their qualifications
• Fan engagement and transparency as keys to success
James Johnson and Phil Smith bring you the best and most up to date Jacksonville Jaguars news. "Touchdown Jaguars!" is a tribute to the prospective ownership group "Touchdown Jacksonville!" In 1991, the NFL announced plans to add two expansion teams and "Touchdown Jacksonville!" announced its bid for a team, and Jacksonville was ultimately chosen as one of five finalists. In November 1993, the NFL owners voted 26–2 in favor of awarding the 30th franchise to Jacksonville. James and Phil have been fans of the franchise ever since and have had the honor (and sometimes dishonor) of covering the team professionally since 2017. The rest as they say, is history.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Still running and good, that is a goal, good.
Touchdown Jacksonville 109yards.
Incredible, incredible Playaction Upstairs Wide open.
(00:44):
Tommy Bohannon TouchdownJacksonville, looking for Jimmy
in the end zone.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars, touchdownJaguars.
Welcome to the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast.
Here are your hosts, jamesJohnson and Phil Smith.
(01:06):
Hello everyone, welcome back tothe Touchdown Jaguars podcast.
I am your co-host, phil Smith,joined by your other co-host,
james Johnson and Jay.
The day has arrived.
It is January 22nd, rightaround 5.30 pm Eastern Time, and
(01:26):
, jay, we are fans of a footballteam that is Trent Bulky free.
Finally, after all of this timeessentially since the inception
of the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast, we have been trying to
accomplish what has been finallyaccomplished today, and that is
getting one snake oil salesman,trent Balke, up out of here.
(01:51):
And that has finally happened.
And we knew that we had torecord this impromptu episode
today.
We've kind of been waiting forthe head coaching search to wrap
up, but now that a whole bunchof things have happened and, of
course, the big news of the dayhappening, we could not let any
time pass, any more time passbefore getting together and
recording this episode.
So good to be here with you.
(02:12):
It will be a day of celebration, but also a day of frustration,
you know, as we kind ofnavigate this episode, as this
is something that should havehappened, honestly, a month ago.
So good to be here with you.
How are you feeling?
And, yeah, excited to get thisepisode up and out to the people
.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, first and foremost, man, as you said, man,
I guess I feel like missionaccomplished, right, because me
and you have had this discussion.
You've had this discussion.
Uh, I think like we were kindof at the forefront, or close to
it, of being the vocalist ofwanting to get trent balky out
of here.
Like we were kind of like someof the first people to start
(02:53):
like pushing that even whenurban meyer, when they first
hired urban meyer, you know,even for urban, we were saying
like I don't know that you wantto pair him with the guy that
had the issues that he had insan Francisco and Trent Baalke,
because that, you know, he hasthe tendency to stay around,
which he did even after Urbanwas fired and caused long term
(03:16):
damage and problems.
But nonetheless, it is missionaccomplished in terms of the
agenda we've been pushing andthat is for this team to free
themselves of Trent Baalke.
So they did that today and Icouldn't believe what I was
seeing.
I was outside trying to, youknow, clear the snow away from
(03:38):
my water pipe.
That's another thing.
Like it's been crazy weather.
So, if this all of is happening, as jacksonville got snow and
no, not jacksonville well, yeah,actually north jacksonville got
snow.
So that's crazy in itself, butall of this is happening as
everybody is home right and justhunkering down and playing it
safe, so I guess, what betterday for it to happen, um, when
(04:01):
people are not at work and canactually, uh, have discussions,
which we already had to.
By the way, we had a space Shoutouts to you, phil, for coming
in we appreciate it and Aaronand everybody else that jumped
in, jacob DeLawrence, formerpodcast host, with you and I,
man, and we had a discussionabout the Liam Cohen situation,
(04:24):
which we'll discuss.
We'll rehash that, of course,because that's a big part of
today and today's news.
But, yeah, circling back toBalki, man is mission
accomplished.
Yeah, it is too late, we'lldiscuss that as well, but I
guess, as the saying goes,better late than never.
And it does open up althoughShotgun is still in charge of
(04:46):
the search a window of hope.
But it always, always began withBalky.
That was always the root of theissue.
With that key element out ofthe Jaguars organization, there
can always be hope, you know,you can always have hope that
the cons will stumble upon agood coach candidate or accident
(05:07):
, but with Balky it was to methey weren't winning the Super
Bowl.
We now at least have a smallpercentage of a chance to get
back to winning a Super Bowl,and I can't wait to have the
discussion about.
You know what's up ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right, we will definitely look forward in terms
of what we expect or what wewant to see, but we will be
doing some recapping here overthe course of the episode
because, you know, a lot ofthings happened in order for us
to get to this point.
You know, obviously, for ourlast episode was, I mean, about
a month ago, when the seasonended.
We're about to have thechampionship games this weekend
(05:50):
and we were just once againwaiting to see how all of this
played out.
And there were reports outthere that Shad Khan would move
on from Trent Baalke for theright candidate.
And then we got reports aboutmove on from Ben from Trent
Balky for the right candidate,you know.
And then we got reports aboutBen Johnson interviewing with
them and not really getting anyassurances that there'd be any
(06:13):
changes.
Just so much has happened sincewe put out an episode on
January 8th, so it's only beenabout two weeks actually.
So, which is crazy that we're acouple of weeks away from the
Superbowl.
But yeah, we're going to getinto all of that here.
So thank you all so much forbeing here with us.
The last episode did very wellin terms of downloads.
So, jay, it's crazy, liam Cohenmay have saved the podcast.
(06:35):
Right, we were sitting here acouple weeks ago talking about
man.
We don't even know if we wantto do touchdown chat bars
anymore.
In its current iteration, itmight morph into something else.
Liam Cohen, along with FrankGore back a couple years ago
these two guys may have savedthe touchdown Jaguars podcast
and any future iteration of thisshow that might come to be in
(06:57):
the future yeah, not just Liamman.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Ben Johnson played a role in this.
Maybe even Byron left, whichyou know he had a similar
situation, or you know, like Iguess the reports are mixed on
like what happened there.
You know he's even said that hewasn't necessarily offered the
job.
But I mean, I don't want tospeak for Byron, but if I were
(07:22):
him I probably wouldn't havesigned off on bulky either and
probably would have asked for myown GM.
So I'm sure the discussionswould have gotten to that if
they didn't right.
So, yeah, man, as you said, liamCohen man, like he belongs in
that category that we'vediscussed with Frank Gore, where
we need to build in the newstadium, build a statue of him
(07:45):
in like a Hall of Fame, likesection of the stadium.
So that's the next agenda Get aLiam Cohen statue put in the
Jaguars stadium.
Whether he's our coach or not,he could still end up being our
coach.
You know he hadn't signed thepaperwork.
Not that signing the paperworkmatters, because you know
offensive coordinators arealready signed when they go to a
(08:07):
new team anyway, so that Idon't know that that would
matter.
But uh, yeah, whether he's thecoach or not, the next agenda is
to get that liam cohen statuein the new stadium, as he has
relieved us and alleviated theJacksonville Jaguars of the.
I guess the the chains of TrentBalky is how I will put it yeah
(08:33):
, byron left.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Way, I mean the word on Byron left, which was that he
wanted Adrian Wilson as his GM,and I'm not going to get into
that.
Just Google Adrian Wilson andit's.
We definitely dodged a bulletthere when it comes to that
hiring.
But yeah, I mean all of thefranchise ineptitude over the
last few years.
All of it can be tied back toTrent Baalke.
(08:54):
You know, there's that thingthat's like the six degrees of
Kevin Bacon, like how manyactors or people can you name
before you get back to KevinBacon, who was kind of like the
center of it.
You don't even have to do sixdegrees, they can just go like
one or two degrees and it's alltraced back to Trampolki.
So we're going to unpack all ofthis over the next hour or so
(09:14):
for this episode.
So let's get out of the way.
Just some housekeeping.
Of course, everything you needin terms of the Touchdown
Jaguars podcast is in theLinktree link of the show notes.
You'll find social media pages,a link to download the SeatGeek
app.
Use our promo codeTouchdownJaguars all of that.
Things are going to get prettycrazy here over the next couple
of weeks, so you definitely wantto keep up with myself, jay,
(09:36):
and the podcast pages.
We are most active on X as ofright now, until Twitter.
Why did I call it X?
We're most active on Twitter.
But, jay, let's kind of startback over the last couple of
weeks, because here's somethings that have happened.
One, ben Johnson, went with theChicago Bears right.
Aaron Glenn, as of today, isbeing hired by the New York Jets
(09:58):
.
So another guy that was very,very high on our list, a guy
that you have been banging thedrum for forever you can look
back at previous episodes ofthis podcast and any iteration,
whether it be Believe in theJaguars, jags Den, whatever it
may be you have been banging thedrum for a Mike Barganzi hire
here in Jacksonville, tennesseescoops him up as their new
(10:21):
general manager.
So a lot of things, a lot ofdominoes, have fallen over the
course of the last few weeks.
Now, obviously, this thing wenta lot faster than I think a lot
of us would, because we expectedthe Lions to be in the Super
Bowl.
I know I certainly did andmaybe that was a little
short-sighted of me because ofall the injuries, but they had
been able to overcome and figurethat out over the course of the
(10:45):
season.
But I mean they ran into,obviously a buzzsaw in Jane
Daniels.
I think that's one of thoseinstances where not having the
week off and continuing to playwith momentum really helped.
All these things kind ofhappened over the last couple of
weeks and you know, differentnames have been thrown out as
far as leaders in the clubhousefor head coaches and everything
like that, and Jay.
(11:05):
Up until yesterday, the 21st,we figured Liam Cohen was going
to be the head coach, offensivecoordinator from Tampa Bay.
He withdraws himself from therace.
So before we get into lookingahead, I just kind of want to
get your thoughts on thecoaching landscape as it has
shaped over the last couple ofweeks, because it has been crazy
(11:27):
, like take the actual footballon the field out of it, which
has also been prettyentertaining and pretty insane.
But the coaching carousel moveda lot quicker than we thought
it would because of the Lionsbeing ousted in the second round
.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, and I mean if well, I was about to say say, if
I was a betting man.
I am a betting man, I do putsome money on games occasionally
, like all of us do, right?
But yeah, going into the Lionsand Commanders game, you know I
would have put money if I wasgoing to put money on it, on the
Lions winning that one, youknow, just for the simple fact
(12:02):
that they you know they had ayoung quarterback that they were
going against and they had alittle bit of risk because they
had a week off.
But then again, sometimes thathurts the team, right, having
that week off.
We've seen that with the Ravensin the past, right and other
teams.
So I don't know if that wouldhave necessarily been a good
thing for some teams, but I wasreally confident that the lions
(12:27):
would win and you know we wouldprobably end up having to wait
on, you know, the ben johnsonhire.
And look, now that I'm thinkingabout it, phil, though, had
they won the game, and thatwould have delayed the ben
johnson hire.
Maybe the bears didn't end upwith them and maybe he's still
on the table for us to get, butthen again, that don't mean that
Trent would be gone either.
So I don't know.
(12:48):
But yeah, all of that said manin terms of, yeah, the coaching
carousel and landscape, yeahit's, they started to move very
quickly Monday, you know, andwell, probably Sunday.
But on surface level it startedto move really quickly on
Monday, as we saw.
You know, it'd take Ben Long tomake a decision and the crazy
(13:10):
part about Ben Johnson makinghis decision is he hadn't met
with them.
According to reports, he onlymet with them virtually.
He hadn't met with them inperson.
So they hired this man withoutan in-person interview, which is
, you know, crazy to say theleast.
And you know, typically, youknow, you at least want to sit
(13:30):
face to face with the guy beforeyou do it.
But I guess they were so blownaway with what they saw in the
Zoom conference that they wentahead and did it.
Then, as you said, the Jets theyflew in Aaron Glenn, aaron
Glenn, and they also have beentalking to Lance Newmark, the GM
that used to be, or the fellahe used to be, with the Lions
front office.
(13:50):
He's the assistant GM with thecommanders right now.
He has ties to the Lionscoaches, so they've been trying
to pair the Lions coaches withhim in this search or whatever.
They interviewed him too, and Ithink they were doing a second
interview with him, so they'vebeen moving fast on him.
But they've settled in on AaronGlenn.
They had a long discussion withthem, right?
(14:12):
Woody Johnson and you knowcompany, whoever else was part
of that Jets group thatinterviewed him, you know he
came back, thought about thedecision a little bit.
Aaron Glenn didn't take himlong, took the deal.
Now he will be the New YorkJets head coach man.
I just think, like, in overall,though, when looking at
everything, yeah, this has beena crazy run in terms of the
(14:36):
coaching carousel overall andhow things have gone, because
you know it just, and that's theNFL, though, phil, but a wrench
was thrown in everything whenthe Lions lost.
But again, that's the NFL foryou, you have to be able to
adapt on the go, because younever know what happened.
Anybody can win on any givenSunday, and that's what happened
(14:56):
, or any given Saturday,thursday or Monday, whatever the
case may be, and that's whathappened with the Lions is.
You know they I don't want tosay they underestimated
Washington, but Washington camein a red hot.
Cliff Kingsbury was dialing itup left and right.
Who could be a guy we need tointerview is well, down the road
(15:16):
, cliff Kingsbury was dialing itup left and right and he just
had their number on that day.
You just have to be better thanthe team in front of you for
one day, and they were at theright time, and now they're one
step closer yeah, you gottawonder if this takes place with
Trent Baalke a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Is Ben Johnson and his GM of choice about to sign
on the dotted line withJacksonville, right?
So many of these things, somany of these what-ifs, and you
know, I am obviously veryfrustrated today.
I'm very excited because thisfinally happened, but like just
so incredibly frustrated becauseI kind of like liken it to what
went on is going on with thecowboys, right, like they got
(15:56):
off to a late start because theycouldn't figure out what they
wanted to do with mike mccarthyand, uh, you know, all of that
is just, like I said,frustrating is the word that's
going to come up here a lot.
So what about some other things?
Jay, um, you know the mikebarangazi of it all, um, over
there, tennessee, and obviouslyright now, in terms of that team
, you know they got the numberone overall pick new general
(16:17):
manager.
So what are you?
You know what kind of reactiondid you had to them getting your
guy.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Oh, I absolutely hate it, man.
And I hate it because theTitans are somewhat competent
and the reason I bring that upis with the right GM, they can
close the gap between them andthe Jazz very quickly, if not
within this season.
So for them to get a guy who Ipraised a lot and I think will
(16:45):
be a very good GM in MikeBorgunzi and the resources
that's available to him, notlike the number one overall pick
so you might be looking at likea Shadur Sanders at quarterback
or something like that, youknow that is concerning, and a
lot of this boils down to theJaguars incompetence.
(17:06):
Right, they could have beenfurther ahead of the Titans by
this point when they got bornborn Gunsey.
But here we are just now firingtheir GM, and I even said this
to Phil when they said that theywere going to be hiring born
Gunsey, I said that, yeah, we.
That's all the more reason toget rid of Trent Balky, because
(17:30):
when that man works his magic,he's no doubt.
If Trent Balky is the GM forthis team, he's going to catch
us, and it likely wouldn't bedue to necessarily the talent,
because Trent was able to bringtalent in here here and there.
Well, no, I take that back LikeI think Borgonzi would
out-talent him in terms oftalent acquisition.
(17:51):
I guess that's hard to saybecause we never seen the man at
work yet, but I think he wouldtoo.
But it was just also because Idon't think Mike Borgonzi is
going to set his organizationback from the standpoint of not
having that level of seeing eyeto eye with their head coach.
That would make the transitionas smooth as possible as well,
(18:13):
meanwhile, whereas any coachthat we would have hired would
have had to always look overtheir shoulder and have a power
struggle with Trent Baalke.
That doesn't help a team at all.
It's more than just puttingtogether the talent.
It's some other things that canhold you back too as well.
We've seen plenty of supertalented teams, by the way, feel
not play to their expectations.
(18:35):
So it's more than just thetalent thing and a talent
acquisition thing.
No, it's about being inlockstep with each other and
seeing eye to eye, which issomething that was important in
Ben Johnson's eyes and a lot ofthese other people's eyes as
well.
So, that being said, man, likeit was disappointing to see them
get him.
It's even more disappointingnow, now that we're looking at
(18:57):
it in hindsight, phil, that wefired Trent Baalke.
What?
Two days after they hired him.
If we would have just maybewaited, you know, or not waited,
but if we would have startedthis process a little bit longer
ago, we could have been one ofthe teams interviewing him as
well, mike Brongunzi.
So yeah, that's realdisappointing from that
(19:19):
standpoint, now that I'mreflecting on it is, you know,
we got rid of Trent Baalke twodays after Mike Brongunzi was
off of the market.
Mike, how disappointing is that.
So, yeah, I share thosesentiments with you when you say
, like it's a frustratingprocess and still, but at the
(19:45):
same time, again, there is asmall ray of hope now that this
team doesn't have Trent Balky,at least, at the end of the day,
the end goal and the bestresult that was needed happened
just a little bit late.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, so let's get into it.
The elephant in the room, whateverybody is talking about here
in Jacksonville and throughoutthe entire fan base the
Jacksonville Jaguars finally,finally moved on from Trent
Bulkey.
A statement from ShotKhan cameout here earlier today.
Following several discussionswith Trent Balky this week, we
(20:22):
both arrived at the conclusionthat is in our mutual best
interest to respectfullyseparate effective immediately.
Trent leaves us with my deepestappreciation for his efforts
over the past five seasons.
Ethan Wall will serve asinterim general manager and play
an important role with othersas we continue the process of
interviewing candidates to serveas our new head coach.
(20:44):
I am deeply committed tobuilding a winner here in
Jacksonville and look forward tointroducing a new head coach
who will make that happen forour players and fans alike.
So there it is.
That news dropped a couple ofhours ago.
Here Once again, we'rerecording this about 6 pm on
Wednesday and everybody'sscreaming from the rooftops
(21:05):
about how excited they are andrightfully so, but also, at the
same time, so many otheranalysts and also fans, you know
, wondering why now, what tookso long, you know when?
I'm sure Shad Khan is able toidentify people within the
(21:27):
league that could tell him hey,this is going to hamper your
coaching search if you keep thisguy around, and I'm pretty sure
we mentioned that a couple ofweeks ago and he instead decided
to proceed with Trent Balkebecause I don't know.
He likes the way he talks, helikes the way that he dresses,
he likes the way that he feedshim information, whatever it is,
(21:50):
we will never know.
Hopefully we will.
Someday There'll be adocumentary or something.
But this decision comes acouple weeks too late.
But, like you said, better latethan never, I suppose.
But initial reactions jay tothis finally taking place.
You know you've already touchedon it, obviously a little bit,
(22:11):
but trebolke has now gone intotwo franchises, essentially left
them a mess.
Now the niners, of course, haverecovered and jury's still out
on what will happen here.
But this is just an incrediblefumble of a process by shod khan
and the organization to keep aguy around that within the
(22:35):
league nobody wants to work withRight and you say no, we're
going to go ahead and pushforward and stay the course on
this route.
And if you listen to the last,you know the last episode.
I told you as soon as this newsbroke, I called the ticket
office immediately and canceledmy season tickets.
I'm still not going to go back.
In case you guys are wondering,I'm still not going to go back.
In case you guys are wondering,I'm still not calling them and
(22:55):
say, hey about that, let's runit back.
No, they've got to prove to methat they're going to win.
Even if they get a competent GMand head coach in here, they've
still got to prove that theycan win in the field.
It's a whole other story.
So just take us back over thelast couple hours.
You know again, trent Baalkefinally out as no longer the
general manager of theJacksonville Jaguars and we can
begin the healing process, Isuppose.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, that's the key right there is.
We can begin the healingprocess.
But what's real frustratingabout it is this you know,
before the search took place,right, reports say that Sean
Conn was told that keepingBaalke would make the process
harder and he did it anyway.
That's what's frustrating aboutit.
He did it anyway.
(23:38):
He had people advising himright to go in this with a clean
slate and find a GM and a headcoach, as opposed to going into
it with a GM looking for a headcoach.
And it cost them dearly and itprobably, you know people say
that.
You know they don't believethat Sean Cunn gets embarrassed
(23:59):
and this, that and the other,and I believe he does.
But at the end of the day, themoney he's raking in makes you
feel better about thatembarrassment.
But I think what happened islike he just got tired of
striking out on opportunities.
Right, ben Johnson choosing thechicago bears over us, right,
which that's a story in itself,because ben johnson is going to
(24:23):
a situation he wanted to come tojacksonville.
It was well known he wanted tocome to jacksonville, right, and
yet he passed on theopportunity to come to
jacksonville and maybe even aplace in jacksonville that was a
little bit in terms of the cityitself, a little bit more
low-key than Chicago or LasVegas, which is something that,
like you know, a lot of peoplesaid he kind of wanted or have
(24:43):
alluded to.
But instead of coming toJacksonville, he passed on the
Jaguars, obviously because ofBalky, and he's going into a
situation this is what'seye-opening and it maybe this
even opened up Khan's eyes, bothTony and shot.
He's going into a situationwhere he is going in to a
division where, with that heknows very well albeit, but it's
(25:07):
one of the better divisions infootball, right?
He also made this decision, andanother eye-opening thing that
came out of it was choosingCaleb Williams over Trevor
Lawrence, right?
So that was another eye-openingthing that probably caught
Khan's attention.
But we shouldn't even got tothat point because, again, you
were advised before the draft togo, or before this search to go
(25:33):
ahead fire balky, because itwould cost you dearly.
So what I said I'm saying allof this to say this it took for
him to see ben johnson going tothat situation, which isn't
appeal as appealing as thejacksonville jaguar situation,
and it's an uphill battle forben johnson and he's willing to
take that risk, by the way, as afirst year head coach.
(25:55):
It took him going to thatsituation for Khan to say like
hey, ok, the people that advisedme the first time around were
right.
And also, too, what kind ofbugs me about this situation is
that and we saw this in the Zoomconference with Khan and Balky
is he basically alluded to nothaving enough of a ear to the
ground or enough of arelationship with other people
(26:19):
in the organization outside ofBalky?
Now, sure you know he mentionedEthan Waugh is somebody he kind
of leans on, which you knowhe'll be assisting with the GM
search, and it's probably a fewothers.
But obviously it's clear thathe doesn't listen enough to the
scouting department and how theymaybe feel about Trent right,
(26:39):
because you can't tell me theylove the guy and others.
You know others within thecoaching staff and how they felt
about Trent, although you endedup firing them, but it still
would have been good to know howthey felt about the
relationship with Trent Baalke.
So that just kind of shows methat he doesn't have enough of a
understanding and connectionwith the rest of the fan base or
(27:00):
the rest of the organizationoutside of Trent to understand
that this guy was an issue.
And then we go on to the LiamCohen situation.
I guess that was the, as theysay, the straw that broke the
camel's back right.
They probably I mean youdiscussed this beforehand before
recording they probably had thejet gassed up, they probably
(27:21):
were feeling high and mightyabout how the situation would go
, but at the end of the day,trent Baalke was still the GM
and that probably played a bigrole in him saying you know what
, actually, I'll stay here whereI am.
Then that's when I realized,like OK, like I probably should
have took the advice of whoeverwas advising me before this
(27:43):
search to fire this guy, becauseI would be much further along
and this would have been a mucheasier process than it is.
So ultimately, man, what'sreally just frustrating about
the whole situation is that shotkhan put one person ahead and
one person's situation ahead ofthe whole franchise, right, and
(28:07):
it took this long for him tounderstand that nobody, nobody,
not even you can, even owner.
You can even argue that theowner's not even a person that
should be put ahead of thefranchise.
Nobody should be prioritized orput ahead of the organization
to the point where it hindersthem like this.
And yet nonetheless, he stillhung on to Trent and it hindered
(28:29):
the Jaguars in a very, verynegative way and, uh, it's just
sad to see it get to this point.
But the man's gone now and wecan begin the healing process
yeah and again, as this.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
This does deserve like.
We deserve to celebrate, likejaguar fans, we deserve to be
happy about this, but it is justpaired with so much frustration
and just the lack of awarenessfrom somebody who, like we said
last or the last episode, who isobviously incredibly smart
(29:06):
shotgun.
You don't get to be where youare in terms of financial and
professional success on accidentand we said it last episode
like if he ran his otherbusinesses the same way he runs
the Jacksonville Jaguars.
There's no way he would be inthe position that he is in now.
So how did it get to this pointwhere, after you know, liam
(29:29):
Cohen made his decision and whoknows what's going to happen
with that now?
We'll talk about that here injust a moment because I want to
get your thoughts, jay.
After losing out on Ben Johnson,liam Cohen turning it down, how
did it take so long to get tothis point?
It just doesn't make any senseto me.
Maybe things can turn aroundwith the right guy, but I think
(29:53):
you guys mentioned this in thespaces this morning.
Jay, yeah, shod khan doesn'tknow enough about running a
football team.
So what would be like the worstcase scenario here, moving
forward in terms of like who thenext general manager could be.
(30:14):
I think we talked, like boogiewas mentioning it in the in the
group chat like keeping ethanwaugh, like is appointing ethan
waugh as the gm, because that'skind of how Trent Baalke stuck
around right after Dave Caldwell, like you know, baalke was
already in the building and hejust got appointed that job,
which, from the get, we knew wasgoing to be a terrible idea.
So like what would be?
I don't think it would be aworse situation because Trent
(30:37):
Baalke was the worst, but likewhat would be?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
either a, like a, you know, a, a lateral move or a
move that just would not pushthe needle in terms of what
comes next for that particularposition yeah, that's the one,
ethan waugh, I mean it, thatit's always for me, even when
we've had discussions of thepossibility of trent being
removed and a lot of peoplewould joke like, well, he'll
(31:02):
just promote Ethan, why?
And I always say like, no,that's not.
It, that's not.
And that's why, if you alwayslook at my tweets, why I have
always carefully worded it as aclean sweep, and by clean I mean
also within the front office,getting somebody that's not
currently in the front officeand I think I probably tweeted
(31:25):
it exactly like that in the pastas well, like getting somebody
that's not currently in thefront office.
And look, this is nothingagainst Ethan Waugh.
We don't even know the guy, wedon't know a lot about the guy,
but anybody who signs off on,you know, joining Trent Baalke
and, look, it was probably theopportunity of a lifetime.
But anybody who answered andwas a yes man to Trent Baalke,
(31:47):
or whatever the case may be,isn't going to cut it for me.
You know what I'm saying,because you were part of the
problem and you were part of theproblem that didn't speak out
as well.
And we probably can come tothat conclusion because, as Sean
Conn said in the Zoomconference.
Ethan is one of the people healso speaks to about football
(32:07):
advice.
So for Ethan to not say, hey,even though I'll be, trent
Baalke was his boss, hey, Idon't think Trent is the guy
that you want leading this team,you know, because there's
friction between him and thecoaches leading this team.
You know, because there'sfriction between him and the
coaches and you know there wasfriction when he was with the
(32:28):
San Francisco 49ers, him notspeaking up and saying anything
and just basically lettingthings go on as they are.
He was part of the problem.
So if he is named the GM, didyou really get, did you make an
upgrade there?
You know, and who's who's to saymaybe ethan is a better overall
person and will be in morelockstep with the coaches.
(32:49):
Be, um, better, just as a humanbeing with the coaches and what
have you?
He probably could be.
But again, going back to what Iwas saying, the fact that you
didn't step up and speak up anddiscuss with shot the things
that Trent was doing wrong andthe connection he had with the
coaching staff, the fact thatyou didn't step up and say
(33:12):
anything tells me all I need toknow about Ethan Waugh and that
he shouldn't be the guy leadingthe way in terms of him being a
GM heading forward.
So that's one of them.
You know, there was a point intime also, phil, where I thought
that Tony Bocelli would be agood EVP, but after the things
(33:32):
he said I'm not sure he's fit tobe an EVP.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Keep him away, keep him away.
We can separate Tony the playerand Tony the Jaguar legend from
whatever he is now.
But yeah, no, keep him awayfrom the front office man.
I don't want any part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Right, I agree.
So that would be another badscenario that wouldn't move the
needle for me, you know, withhim being the EVP Now look,
granted, he doesn't have bulkyblinders on anymore because the
guy is gone.
But again, just, it's all aboutwhat you said and what you did
in the past.
Sometimes, and especially inthe recent past, just as I was
(34:08):
saying for Ethan, the same canbe applied for Tony Him having
the blinders on for Balky whenBalky was here and was the GM,
and just not.
And me and you discussed thisin the last podcast, in the last
episode, phil, and not callingit like it is right.
If there is anybody thatdeserves to speak their mind to
Sean Cunn and call it like it ison this planet, one of those
(34:32):
people is Tony Bocelli, becausehe has spent blood, sweat and
tears and he's put blood, sweatand tears onto the field as a
player he was here before Seanwas here and tears onto the
field as a player.
He was here before Shaw washere.
If it's anybody who deserves tospeak their mind and speak the
truth and say what needs to besaid to get this franchise fixed
and not be held against them,it's Tony Bocelli.
But nonetheless, he wasbasically a bootlicker to Balki
(34:58):
in the process, balky in theprocess.
But I think Bocelli, out ofanybody, is a guy that could
have gone to Shaw and let himknow.
This guy's probably not who youwant to lead your franchise and
Shaw not holding it against him, or I guess you could be scared
(35:20):
of losing your job, whateverthe case may be if you're Tony
Bocelli.
But you know, if it's anybodythat deserves to speak truths
about what's going on with thisfranchise to shot Cullen is
absolutely Tony Bocelli and youknow shot.
I would think shot will respectthat being that, as I said,
tony has put blood, sweat andtears into this team.
So those are two bad scenarios.
Right there for me is EthanWaugh and the Tony Bocelli
(35:44):
situation.
So I just hope you know shotand it is shot come.
But I just hope that shotdoesn't have it in his mind and
his mind made up like we'll justpromote Ethan Waugh up to the
GM position Because again, hewas a part of the problem.
He was part of Balky's team anddid nothing to fix it.
So we'll see in time, we'lltell and you know, hopefully
(36:08):
we'll see how they go about inthe head coach search.
I don't know if they'll get acoach.
Then they'll look for a GM orthey'll just reset everything
after they speak with Sala andCoach Graham and they'll start a
GM search and then, like, maybecircle around two coaches and
that'll give them more time tomaybe even like include Joe
Brady in the mix for a secondinterview too.
(36:29):
We'll see a lot of questionsneed to be answered after this
point heading forward yeah, Iagree, definitely to completely
clean house.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
That's what needs to happen.
Like we're so close.
Like just go ahead and finishoff the process, you know what I
mean.
Like just go ahead and find thetwo guys that are going to be
in lockstep, that are going towork together to to bring this
thing in your turn, to turn thisthing around in a division that
, like you said, is verywinnable, like I, I kind of
agree.
Like, so shout out again toJacob this morning in the in the
(37:02):
spaces Like I don't know if BenJohnson's going to work out of
it as a head coach.
I am definitely much more.
I feel like Aaron Glenn willprobably, as a head coach, will
probably be a little bit moresuccessful.
But like you're telling me thatBen Johnson couldn't have
cooked something up with TrevorLawrence, btj, those two running
backs like we've talked aboutin the past.
Like that's why he probably waslegitimately interested in this
(37:24):
job.
Right, and because of theineptitude of the, you know,
starting at the very top, wemissed out on him, missed out on
Aaron Glenn, possibly LiamCohen.
We will see what happens next.
But, yeah, just go ahead andclean the whole cabinet and get
two people in here, startingfrom the top, that are going to
work together to bring in thestaff that they want, you know.
(37:48):
So hopefully that's what we'llsee happen, you know you already
alluded to it there a littlebit jay, like what's going to
happen first, you know, do theybring in the coach first in the
gm?
Is liam cohen now back in themix, do you think?
You know I think I saw Dillatweeting about it like there's
probably already conversationshappening now what happens with
(38:08):
this search?
Because you know we're, youknow Robert Sala is about to
come in for a face-to-face.
Like what does this mean?
Are they waiting on?
Like a Joe Brady, cliffKingsbury, you know, kellen
Moore?
Like, are these guys now in themix, as they have two positions
to fill now instead?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
of just one.
Yeah, the others should be inthe mix because for the simple
fact that um, I think it was, Iforgot what reporter it was that
revealed this but balky was inon the interview, so he was a
part of the interview process.
Right Now that he's gone, youshould absolutely include others
.
Therefore, you're casting in awide net.
(38:47):
What's the point in firingBalky if you don't cast a wide
net, as opposed to, like, maybe,guys that he was considering,
for the simple fact that Cohenand Ben Johnson obviously didn't
want him there.
Those probably weren't his toppreferences.
But the guys that are remaining, for example, robert Saleh and
(39:09):
Patrick Graham who's to saythose aren't top bulky choices.
So you don't have to lockyourself in to just solely bulky
choices.
Now that he's gone, you can casta wider net and now that you
know Ethan Wise, the assistantor the interim GM, you know you
can maybe go into the situationwith a little bit more of an
(39:30):
open mind of who the coach couldbe.
That being said, yeah, I mean Ireally hope that.
I don't want to say that theyreset it entirely.
Go ahead and do your interviewswith Graham and your second
interviews with Graham and Sala,but I do hope that it resets it
in the sense that they'll, youknow, wait for Cliff Kingsbury
(39:53):
and you know, wait for Joe Bradywhen he's eligible to do an
interview as well.
But you know, time will tell onthis.
And uh, what was your otherquestion?
It was another key question youhad put in there that was
basically it.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like, are they waiting on some of these other
candidates?
Like, do you, uh, what doesthis mean for the interviews you
already had, which you you justanswered?
And, uh, you know, do they tryand get the gm first or do they
do the head coach first?
Like, what does this do for the, the timing, essentially, and
also too, yeah, you, yeah, youmentioned Liam Cohen.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Do they circle back around?
That's right that was the bigone.
Yeah, so yeah with Liam.
Yes, absolutely you do.
And the reason you do it too isbecause, like, really, you were
the only team that he was onthe radar for.
Like, nobody else interviewedhim which somebody could see.
You know some folks would saythat's a red flag.
If somebody could see, you know, some folks would say that's a
(40:44):
red flag.
But circle back around to that.
You know he hasn't signed acontract Not that that matters
for the upgrade and pay to bethe offensive coordinator for at
least one more season orwhatever the case may be.
But yeah, circle back around toit.
Because now Liam Cohen is wellaware that you know Trent Baalke
is gone, and not only that.
(41:04):
You know Liam Cohen is in asituation where he understands
like I think we all understandnow, especially the coaches the
unique thing about this is nowwe all understand that Shaq Khan
is just simply lost in thissituation.
So Liam Cohen now knows rightthat and it shouldn't fall on
him.
This is how disjointed andridiculous this coaching search
(41:25):
is.
He now knows that, like I mighthave to help if they hire a
coach first, or hire me first, Imight have to help them find a
GM, but also, at the same time,who's been briefing him on not
joining the Jacksonville Jaguars?
A bunch of executives in theBucs front office.
So he's been establishingcommunication with these
(41:47):
executives and whatnot.
So he basically has beenspeaking with people that he can
bring in with him to be the GM.
Again.
That shouldn't fall on him.
That's a lot to ask of a coach,especially a first-year head
coach.
But hey, you've been speakingwith these people anyway about
if you will take the job, or youshould take the job with the
Jaguars and not Now.
(42:07):
The conversation is now do oneof y'all want to come with me?
You know, can one of you helpguide me on this process,
whether that's Mike Greenberg,obviously, john Spitek, I think
he's going to join the Raiders,so he'll be their GM, so he'll
be gone.
But yeah, the conversation nowbecomes hey, mike, do you want
to come with me to Jacksonville?
(42:28):
You know I would definitelysuggest you in the second
interview with Shahid Khan as aguy to interview and you know,
like you would be my lot forbeing a GM and you know we could
turn this thing around, likethe books, like we have with the
books.
So I think that makes a more,much more interesting
conversation for the coachesthat they want to interview now,
(42:49):
because now those coaches feelwill have an added job now to.
To answer your question, willthey feel GM first and then go
to a head coach?
I think, just in how disjointedthe Cons have been and how
they've operated, with themalready putting effort into a
coaching search, I think they'llcontinue with that and then
(43:13):
fill out the GM role.
I mean, what's the point inkeeping Ethan Wise, the interim,
you know, if you're not goingto continue to interview coaches
?
So I think like they'llprobably look for a coach first,
which is a little bit backwards, but they only have themselves
to blame.
They'll look for a coach firstand then they'll surf around to
a GM situation after that.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Well, as we kind of wrap up this conversation here,
jay, you know if you want tothrow out some names, obviously
we had our episode earlier inthe year as far as GM candidates
and head coaching candidates.
So who's left out there nowthat they kind of have to reset
and essentially start fromscratch in terms of, you know,
the highest position that theyneed to fill?
And you want to throw out somenames before we wrap up this
(43:56):
episode?
And you know, obviously we'vementioned them a few of them
here right now.
Do you have a new ranking nowthat some of those guys are off
the list?
Obviously, vrabel was high onour list, ben Johnson, aaron
Glenn, some of these other guys.
What does that list look likenow if you were to be put in
charge of where they should looknext?
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, like many of my guys from our list earlier,
feel that we made are gone.
Right, they've taken jobs and,in the case of some of them,
some of them don't look as goodas they once did.
Like Bobby Sloic, I had himpretty high on my list.
Now it's like, uh, you know,he's kind of falling down on
some people's list.
I mean, he still does have theconnection to the Shanahan tree,
(44:41):
so it's not like the guy haslost the ability to coach it.
You know it could more so be.
His quarterback isn'tperforming like he once did as a
rookie, so that could be onething.
So still, nonetheless, I kindof would pass on Slug right now.
Todd Munkin was on that list,right, I wouldn't mind, you know
, doing a second interview withTodd Munkin.
I know like the big thing withhim is, you know, doing a second
interview with Todd Monk, and Iknow like the big thing with
(45:03):
him is, you know, he's up therein age, so you know he's closer
to 60.
But nonetheless, though, justwhat he's been able to do with
the personnel that he had,whether it was in Georgia or
whatever the case may be, he'sone of those guys that it's like
hey, whatever you got, we'llcater the scheme to them, them
(45:23):
we'll make it work and we'llhave success doing it right.
So he's just had this widearray of different personnel and
each time right, he has beenable to make great offenses out
of that.
And also he just has aconnection with the jazz.
He used to be a coach with themunder jack del rio.
But I would definitely say thelist has changed in the sense
that you know, we didn't evenhave Cohen on the list that we
(45:46):
made right.
He was a guy that just kind ofcame out of nowhere, and
rightfully so.
And you know that's not a badthing because he's much like
Monken.
He's done the best he couldwith what he has and that's why
he's now risen to the top of mylist.
So I would put him at the topof the list and then I would
probably put, like Todd Munkinas that second guy, or well, no,
(46:08):
no, we uh Joe Brady as thatsecond guy, then Munkin as the
third, because I do think westill should go with the
offensive guy, and it's eveneasier to do now that Aaron
Glenn is off of the list.
I'm not opposed to Robert Sala,I just keep getting hung up on
who would he bring as theoffensive coordinator, right?
So that's just the only thingwith him.
(46:29):
But who's to say with thesecond chance he won't have
success?
Because that was a prettycrappy situation with the Jets.
You know him having to take inAaron Rodgers Woody Johnson is
kind of a meddlesome owner who'sto say he won't have success
with the right offensive hire,that is, with the Jacksonville
Jaguars?
So you know he will besomewhere on my list, not at the
(46:52):
top or top two.
I would definitely look at someoffensive mind over him.
But now that Balky's gone andnow that it's a kind of a clean
sweep, yeah, I would be OK withhim with the right officer
coordinator and of course, theright GM as well.
But those are the two keythings with him.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
What about the name that I threw out in the spaces
this morning, jay?
In terms of Mike McCarthy, Imentioned this that I know that
would not necessarily be aneedle mover and some people
might think it's a retread, andyou had a good response to that,
so I'll have you echo that herein a moment.
But I mean to go into Dallasand have a owner like Jerry
(47:32):
Jones, who is just constantlywants to be the center of
attention, makes it incrediblydifficult for anybody to do
their job.
I mean, we're talking aboutdating back to the 90s, about
how difficult it has been towork with Jerry Jones and to
come out and have three straight12 win seasons.
Obviously, what happened lastyear you know this past season
out of his hands, injuriesdepleted that team and also
Jerry Jones running.
(47:53):
You know that team.
As far as you know thecontracts that he did to get out
there CeeDee Lamb, dak Prescottan absolute mess.
I said this when they you knowthis when the Cowboys decided to
move on to him, I said that theJaguars should call Mike
McCarthy.
So what do you think about thatguy?
Because I think this is a verysimilar situation to Chicago,
(48:15):
where they need a provenfranchise leader, like somebody
that can come in and knows howto do things correctly and put
together a culture.
That's the culture center.
That's what they need, and Ithrew Mike McCarthy's name out
there.
I know a lot of people wouldn'tbe incredibly excited about
that, but I think it's somethingthey should consider.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, you mentioned him in the space and at that
time Balky was hired, right.
So my big thing that I wasechoing in the space was like,
yeah, mike McCarthy strikes meas a guy, being that he will be
coming from Dallas Cowboys anddealing with the situation he
dealt with there and Jerry, hewould be a guy that I feel like
would come to the Jaguarsorganization and would speak up
(48:55):
for himself, kind of like Trent,not Trent, but Doug didn't do
right, not at least not enough,and that's part of why Doug is
not here.
Right, doug wanted an offensivelineman or offensive lineman
last offseason and what Trentdid was went out there and got
him a 34 year old Mitch Morse,right?
That's not.
I don't think that'snecessarily what Doug had in
(49:17):
mind when he was saying we needto fix this offensive line.
He was probably saying we needto get younger, we need to get
stronger, right?
So anyway, I said all of thatto say this he was a guy that I
thought would have Going throughall of the hoops and the
hurdles to get the personnelneeded, whereas Doug wasn't able
to and didn't.
(49:37):
Right, I think he would be aguy that would.
You know, mike McCarthy we'retalking about here would be a
guy that would go in to get intoshotguns here and say like, hey
, you know, trent wants to draftthis guy, but I want to draft
this guy and I want to help theoffense Right, and I want to do
what's best for Trevor Lawrence,right, and I think he would be
one of those guys that would beable to kind of sway shotgun a
(49:58):
little bit better and have abetter chance to sway shotgun
better than any of the othercoaches we had when they've had
these discussions of a situationwhere it's Trent versus Doug or
Trent versus the coaches, right.
So there's that, and then alsotwo.
Something I want to add to thatPhil is another name that came
to mind.
I tweeted about it that kind offits that mold of McCarthy.
(50:21):
Pete Carroll right, we didn'tdiscuss him in the space.
Now why not maybe circle backto him?
Because Trent Baalke is gone?
Right, you obviously might needsomebody with experience and
also you obviously might needsomebody who can help you with
the GM search.
If you're going to hire thehead coach first, what about him
?
Right, and you still can maybeeven go with your plans to bring
(50:43):
in Salah Salah, who you knowwas under.
Pete Carroll could be hisdefensive coordinator.
You have your head coachingwaiting.
That's something that you'vethrown out there right, and you
have the present and the futuretaken care of.
And you also have a guy, peteCarroll, as I just mentioned,
that can help shot Cunninghamfrom a standpoint of getting
that GM search done.
So now Pete Carroll becomes anintriguing name, in my opinion,
(51:06):
to look for heading forward.
That's not me saying I have asource or anything on it, that's
just a guy that I would lookfor.
Granted that the Jaguars havegone through this disjointed
process and have fired Balkilate, now you kind of need a
Pete Carroll like presence tohelp you through the way.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
I agree.
Yeah, pete Carroll would be aslam dunk hire.
There are rumors out there thatthe Niners have discussed Pete
Carroll as their potentialdefensive coordinator if Robert
Sala doesn't come throughC.
And then you know Pete Carrollknows enough people within his
(51:48):
coaching tree and within theleague that he could bring in
the competent and the correctoffensive coordinator and then,
like you said, assist with thisGM search.
And then you could even make ita situation where because I
know a lot of people areconcerned that Pete Carroll is
obviously a little bit older butyou could make it so that you
know you have a Robert Sala as acoach in waiting or whoever the
(52:08):
offensive coordinator is.
Like that that is, I think,would be an excellent situation,
and that is something that Ithink would make me reconsider
in terms of financially.
I would be like OK, now I canbuy back in, now I can look into
maybe getting the seasontickets again.
Maybe getting the seasontickets again, right, because as
(52:29):
of right now and as of you know, even a month ago, it's a bad
financial decision for me and abunch of other people, in my
opinion, to give their hardearned money to this team that
again has not shown to beserious about winning.
So I would.
I would love Pete Carroll andthat circumstance that you just
laid out here, jay.
(52:50):
So, yeah, those are some namesthat I think I'd be very excited
to hear about over the nextcouple of weeks, including the
Joe Brady's.
I still don't know about CliffKingsbury.
I mean I know a lot of peoplewere saying like, hey, look at
Cliff Kingsbury, when you givehim a quarterback, they can see
over the line of scrimmage.
Brisberry, when you give him aquarterback, that can see over
the line of scrimmage.
You know, like, kyler murray,you know obviously wasn't great
(53:13):
and still isn't great over therein arizona, but I mean, I just
think he's probably having toomuch of a great time with jayden
daniels and what they'rebuilding over there.
You know, like what a greatstory they have been.
I mean, can you imagine?
I can't imagine, actually Ican't imagine a situation in
which we see Jayden Daniels andthe commanders in the Super Bowl
in a couple of weeks.
That is not out of the realm ofpossibility.
The way that they played, theway that they have been playing
(53:35):
throughout the entire playoffs.
They could do it, man, theycould definitely do it.
But obviously there is so muchthat is going to happen over the
course of the next few weeks,of the next few weeks, jay, I'm
sure we could probably seeourselves recording more so on a
weekly basis once this startsto shape out, which is crazy,
because we had essentially beenplanning for, like, the draft
(53:56):
and then who knows what wasgoing to happen with this
podcast.
Now there is still a lot ofopportunity for ShotKon to F
this up, but hopefully that'snot going to be the case and we
have a little bit of juice hereon the Touchdown ChatWars
podcast, a little bit of arejuvenation.
So we'll see what happens.
But anything else you want tomention before we wrap up this
impromptu episode you know, goout there and celebrate
(54:19):
Jacksonville, go out there andcelebrate that we finally got
Trambolki out, but also continueto hold the franchise
accountable.
There is still a lot of work tobe done and we all deserve
better, All of us, all the fans,all the people that bust their
ass in terms of writing for thisteam.
I know we don't normally curseon this podcast, but I felt like
it was necessary.
All the people that work reallyhard covering this team, like,
(54:42):
hold the team accountable, holdShotKhan accountable, because
there is a realm and a world inwhich this is a quick turnaround
because of the pieces that arehere.
So, jay, anything else you wantto mention before we get out of
here and patiently, impatiently, whatever it may be, wait to
see what happens next.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
No, I mean, you really bring up a great point
Now.
It kind of brings life to thesituation from a standpoint.
Now I can cover the draft LikeI hadn't even been watching
draft prospects, right, becauseI just didn't want to deal with
another Trent Baalke draft.
You know, and look, still, theycould still keep Ethan, but
still nonetheless, you know, nowthat opens up a reason to look
(55:20):
into draft prospects, right, wedon't have Michigan prospects
like blacklisted, basically,right, and it opens up this
potential excitement of you know, from the coaching perspective,
right, of who could thesecoaches bring in as their
offensive and defensivecoordinator?
Man, so yeah, man, it's, it's arenewed excitement.
(55:45):
But, as you said, we still doneed to hold the team
accountable and stay on themabout making the right decisions
and not further making this afurther disjointed process than
it already has been.
Right, you already got rid ofthe biggest problem.
All right, let's get on thisteam and then stay on them about
(56:07):
running this like aprofessional NFL franchise.
Right, let's have aprofessional looking interview
process, even if that includesresetting things and doing it
the right way getting a GM firstand getting a coach later,
whatever the case may be, if youwant to continue with the
coaches.
Still, that's fine as well, butlook like professionals in the
process, right?
(56:27):
All right, let's knock out thisstuff.
Man Shotgun is on past a decadeof being an the rest of this
interview process.
So that's what I'm hoping for,is it?
(56:51):
And that we don't look furtherdisjointed than we already have
been.
And yeah, we'll see where itleads us and what what we end up
with in terms of a coach andmaybe a GM.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
Yeah, you're going to want to make sure you keep up
with the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast for everything that you
need to know.
We will obviously be keeping avery, very close eye on this as
we enter a new era of Jaguarfootball.
It's crazy.
Like you know, we're on thesecond contract for Trevor
Lawrence.
Like that was the new era.
Trevor Lawrence was the new era, right, and now he's having to
(57:30):
deal with all this ineptitudewith josh hines, allen and tyson
campbell and evan ingram andbrian thomas jr and all these
guys that work so hard and andlove this team and love these
fans.
So hopefully we can get thisright because once again, like
there is an opportunity here ina division that is weakened, in
a division that has tennesseepicking number one and the colts
can't figure everything out anda Houston team although you
(57:52):
know I'm going to give creditwhere credit is due like two
divisional round appearances intwo years.
That's nothing to scoff about.
They also ran into the refereesand the Kansas City Chiefs,
much like we did a couple ofyears ago.
So there is an opportunity forus to be competitive very
quickly if they make the rightdecisions.
They also have a ton of capspace coming up here, you know.
So, hey, we can, we can getthis done, jaguar fans.
(58:14):
So we are going to becautiously optimistic, but also,
like we said, continue to holdthe team accountable and voice
your opinion.
Get out there, let the teamknow, let them know with your
words, let them know with yourmoney all of that.
But, folks, thank you so muchfor joining us on the touchdown
jaguars podcast continuing fornow as we get into the next,
(58:35):
hopefully, 100 episodes of thisshow.
This is episode 107, so thankyou all for walking with us once
again, link tree link.
In the show notes of theepisode you'll find everything
that you need the social mediapages for myself, j, jay, as
well as the podcast.
Keep up with us over on Twitterand we'll continue to again
give you everything that youneed for this GM and head coach
(58:57):
search.
But, folks, that is my cohost,james Johnson.
I am Phil Smith.
See you very, very soon.
Don't forget to tune intotouchdown Jaguars for each and
every Jaguar touchdown, andwe'll see you next time.
Folks, take care, stay warm andbe safe.
Still running and good, that is a goal, good.
Touchdown Jacksonville 109yards.
Incredible, incredible Playaction Upstairs Wide open.
(00:44):
Tommy Bohannon TouchdownJacksonville, looking for Jimmy
in the end zone.
Touchdown Jaguars.
Touchdown Jaguars, touchdownJaguars.
Welcome to the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast.
Here are your hosts, jamesJohnson and Phil Smith.
(01:06):
Hello everyone, welcome back tothe Touchdown Jaguars podcast.
I am your co-host, phil Smith,joined by your other co-host,
james Johnson and Jay.
The day has arrived.
It is January 22nd, rightaround 5.30 pm Eastern Time, and
(01:26):
, jay, we are fans of a footballteam that is Trent Bulky free.
Finally, after all of this timeessentially since the inception
of the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast, we have been trying to
accomplish what has been finallyaccomplished today, and that is
getting one snake oil salesman,trent Balke, up out of here.
(01:51):
And that has finally happened.
And we knew that we had torecord this impromptu episode
today.
We've kind of been waiting forthe head coaching search to wrap
up, but now that a whole bunchof things have happened and, of
course, the big news of the dayhappening, we could not let any
time pass, any more time passbefore getting together and
recording this episode.
So good to be here with you.
(02:12):
It will be a day of celebration, but also a day of frustration,
you know, as we kind ofnavigate this episode, as this
is something that should havehappened, honestly, a month ago.
So good to be here with you.
How are you feeling?
And, yeah, excited to get thisepisode up and out to the people
.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, first and foremost, man, as you said, man,
I guess I feel like missionaccomplished, right, because me
and you have had this discussion.
You've had this discussion.
Uh, I think like we were kindof at the forefront, or close to
it, of being the vocalist ofwanting to get trent balky out
of here.
Like we were kind of like someof the first people to start
(02:53):
like pushing that even whenurban meyer, when they first
hired urban meyer, you know,even for urban, we were saying
like I don't know that you wantto pair him with the guy that
had the issues that he had insan Francisco and Trent Baalke,
because that, you know, he hasthe tendency to stay around,
which he did even after Urbanwas fired and caused long term
(03:16):
damage and problems.
But nonetheless, it is missionaccomplished in terms of the
agenda we've been pushing andthat is for this team to free
themselves of Trent Baalke.
So they did that today and Icouldn't believe what I was
seeing.
I was outside trying to, youknow, clear the snow away from
(03:38):
my water pipe.
That's another thing.
Like it's been crazy weather.
So, if this all of is happening, as jacksonville got snow and
no, not jacksonville well, yeah,actually north jacksonville got
snow.
So that's crazy in itself, butall of this is happening as
everybody is home right and justhunkering down and playing it
safe, so I guess, what betterday for it to happen, um, when
(04:01):
people are not at work and canactually, uh, have discussions,
which we already had to.
By the way, we had a space Shoutouts to you, phil, for coming
in we appreciate it and Aaronand everybody else that jumped
in, jacob DeLawrence, formerpodcast host, with you and I,
man, and we had a discussionabout the Liam Cohen situation,
(04:24):
which we'll discuss.
We'll rehash that, of course,because that's a big part of
today and today's news.
But, yeah, circling back toBalki, man is mission
accomplished.
Yeah, it is too late, we'lldiscuss that as well, but I
guess, as the saying goes,better late than never.
And it does open up althoughShotgun is still in charge of
(04:46):
the search a window of hope.
But it always, always began withBalky.
That was always the root of theissue.
With that key element out ofthe Jaguars organization, there
can always be hope, you know,you can always have hope that
the cons will stumble upon agood coach candidate or accident
(05:07):
, but with Balky it was to methey weren't winning the Super
Bowl.
We now at least have a smallpercentage of a chance to get
back to winning a Super Bowl,and I can't wait to have the
discussion about.
You know what's up ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right, we will definitely look forward in terms
of what we expect or what wewant to see, but we will be
doing some recapping here overthe course of the episode
because, you know, a lot ofthings happened in order for us
to get to this point.
You know, obviously, for ourlast episode was, I mean, about
a month ago, when the seasonended.
We're about to have thechampionship games this weekend
(05:50):
and we were just once againwaiting to see how all of this
played out.
And there were reports outthere that Shad Khan would move
on from Trent Baalke for theright candidate.
And then we got reports aboutmove on from Ben from Trent
Balky for the right candidate,you know.
And then we got reports aboutBen Johnson interviewing with
them and not really getting anyassurances that there'd be any
(06:13):
changes.
Just so much has happened sincewe put out an episode on
January 8th, so it's only beenabout two weeks actually.
So, which is crazy that we're acouple of weeks away from the
Superbowl.
But yeah, we're going to getinto all of that here.
So thank you all so much forbeing here with us.
The last episode did very wellin terms of downloads.
So, jay, it's crazy, liam Cohenmay have saved the podcast.
(06:35):
Right, we were sitting here acouple weeks ago talking about
man.
We don't even know if we wantto do touchdown chat bars
anymore.
In its current iteration, itmight morph into something else.
Liam Cohen, along with FrankGore back a couple years ago
these two guys may have savedthe touchdown Jaguars podcast
and any future iteration of thisshow that might come to be in
(06:57):
the future yeah, not just Liamman.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Ben Johnson played a role in this.
Maybe even Byron left, whichyou know he had a similar
situation, or you know, like Iguess the reports are mixed on
like what happened there.
You know he's even said that hewasn't necessarily offered the
job.
But I mean, I don't want tospeak for Byron, but if I were
(07:22):
him I probably wouldn't havesigned off on bulky either and
probably would have asked for myown GM.
So I'm sure the discussionswould have gotten to that if
they didn't right.
So, yeah, man, as you said, liamCohen man, like he belongs in
that category that we'vediscussed with Frank Gore, where
we need to build in the newstadium, build a statue of him
(07:45):
in like a Hall of Fame, likesection of the stadium.
So that's the next agenda Get aLiam Cohen statue put in the
Jaguars stadium.
Whether he's our coach or not,he could still end up being our
coach.
You know he hadn't signed thepaperwork.
Not that signing the paperworkmatters, because you know
offensive coordinators arealready signed when they go to a
(08:07):
new team anyway, so that Idon't know that that would
matter.
But uh, yeah, whether he's thecoach or not, the next agenda is
to get that liam cohen statuein the new stadium, as he has
relieved us and alleviated theJacksonville Jaguars of the.
I guess the the chains of TrentBalky is how I will put it yeah
(08:33):
, byron left.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Way, I mean the word on Byron left, which was that he
wanted Adrian Wilson as his GM,and I'm not going to get into
that.
Just Google Adrian Wilson andit's.
We definitely dodged a bulletthere when it comes to that
hiring.
But yeah, I mean all of thefranchise ineptitude over the
last few years.
All of it can be tied back toTrent Baalke.
(08:54):
You know, there's that thingthat's like the six degrees of
Kevin Bacon, like how manyactors or people can you name
before you get back to KevinBacon, who was kind of like the
center of it.
You don't even have to do sixdegrees, they can just go like
one or two degrees and it's alltraced back to Trampolki.
So we're going to unpack all ofthis over the next hour or so
(09:14):
for this episode.
So let's get out of the way.
Just some housekeeping.
Of course, everything you needin terms of the Touchdown
Jaguars podcast is in theLinktree link of the show notes.
You'll find social media pages,a link to download the SeatGeek
app.
Use our promo codeTouchdownJaguars all of that.
Things are going to get prettycrazy here over the next couple
of weeks, so you definitely wantto keep up with myself, jay,
(09:36):
and the podcast pages.
We are most active on X as ofright now, until Twitter.
Why did I call it X?
We're most active on Twitter.
But, jay, let's kind of startback over the last couple of
weeks, because here's somethings that have happened.
One, ben Johnson, went with theChicago Bears right.
Aaron Glenn, as of today, isbeing hired by the New York Jets
(09:58):
.
So another guy that was very,very high on our list, a guy
that you have been banging thedrum for forever you can look
back at previous episodes ofthis podcast and any iteration,
whether it be Believe in theJaguars, jags Den, whatever it
may be you have been banging thedrum for a Mike Barganzi hire
here in Jacksonville, tennesseescoops him up as their new
(10:21):
general manager.
So a lot of things, a lot ofdominoes, have fallen over the
course of the last few weeks.
Now, obviously, this thing wenta lot faster than I think a lot
of us would, because we expectedthe Lions to be in the Super
Bowl.
I know I certainly did andmaybe that was a little
short-sighted of me because ofall the injuries, but they had
been able to overcome and figurethat out over the course of the
(10:45):
season.
But I mean they ran into,obviously a buzzsaw in Jane
Daniels.
I think that's one of thoseinstances where not having the
week off and continuing to playwith momentum really helped.
All these things kind ofhappened over the last couple of
weeks and you know, differentnames have been thrown out as
far as leaders in the clubhousefor head coaches and everything
like that, and Jay.
(11:05):
Up until yesterday, the 21st,we figured Liam Cohen was going
to be the head coach, offensivecoordinator from Tampa Bay.
He withdraws himself from therace.
So before we get into lookingahead, I just kind of want to
get your thoughts on thecoaching landscape as it has
shaped over the last couple ofweeks, because it has been crazy
(11:27):
, like take the actual footballon the field out of it, which
has also been prettyentertaining and pretty insane.
But the coaching carousel moveda lot quicker than we thought
it would because of the Lionsbeing ousted in the second round
.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, and I mean if well, I was about to say say, if
I was a betting man.
I am a betting man, I do putsome money on games occasionally
, like all of us do, right?
But yeah, going into the Lionsand Commanders game, you know I
would have put money if I wasgoing to put money on it, on the
Lions winning that one, youknow, just for the simple fact
(12:02):
that they you know they had ayoung quarterback that they were
going against and they had alittle bit of risk because they
had a week off.
But then again, sometimes thathurts the team, right, having
that week off.
We've seen that with the Ravensin the past, right and other
teams.
So I don't know if that wouldhave necessarily been a good
thing for some teams, but I wasreally confident that the lions
(12:27):
would win and you know we wouldprobably end up having to wait
on, you know, the ben johnsonhire.
And look, now that I'm thinkingabout it, phil, though, had
they won the game, and thatwould have delayed the ben
johnson hire.
Maybe the bears didn't end upwith them and maybe he's still
on the table for us to get, butthen again, that don't mean that
Trent would be gone either.
So I don't know.
(12:48):
But yeah, all of that said manin terms of, yeah, the coaching
carousel and landscape, yeahit's, they started to move very
quickly Monday, you know, andwell, probably Sunday.
But on surface level it startedto move really quickly on
Monday, as we saw.
You know, it'd take Ben Long tomake a decision and the crazy
(13:10):
part about Ben Johnson makinghis decision is he hadn't met
with them.
According to reports, he onlymet with them virtually.
He hadn't met with them inperson.
So they hired this man withoutan in-person interview, which is
, you know, crazy to say theleast.
And you know, typically, youknow, you at least want to sit
(13:30):
face to face with the guy beforeyou do it.
But I guess they were so blownaway with what they saw in the
Zoom conference that they wentahead and did it.
Then, as you said, the Jets theyflew in Aaron Glenn, aaron
Glenn, and they also have beentalking to Lance Newmark, the GM
that used to be, or the fellahe used to be, with the Lions
front office.
(13:50):
He's the assistant GM with thecommanders right now.
He has ties to the Lionscoaches, so they've been trying
to pair the Lions coaches withhim in this search or whatever.
They interviewed him too, and Ithink they were doing a second
interview with him, so they'vebeen moving fast on him.
But they've settled in on AaronGlenn.
They had a long discussion withthem, right?
(14:12):
Woody Johnson and you knowcompany, whoever else was part
of that Jets group thatinterviewed him, you know he
came back, thought about thedecision a little bit.
Aaron Glenn didn't take himlong, took the deal.
Now he will be the New YorkJets head coach man.
I just think, like, in overall,though, when looking at
everything, yeah, this has beena crazy run in terms of the
(14:36):
coaching carousel overall andhow things have gone, because
you know it just, and that's theNFL, though, phil, but a wrench
was thrown in everything whenthe Lions lost.
But again, that's the NFL foryou, you have to be able to
adapt on the go, because younever know what happened.
Anybody can win on any givenSunday, and that's what happened
(14:56):
, or any given Saturday,thursday or Monday, whatever the
case may be, and that's whathappened with the Lions is.
You know they I don't want tosay they underestimated
Washington, but Washington camein a red hot.
Cliff Kingsbury was dialing itup left and right.
Who could be a guy we need tointerview is well, down the road
(15:16):
, cliff Kingsbury was dialing itup left and right and he just
had their number on that day.
You just have to be better thanthe team in front of you for
one day, and they were at theright time, and now they're one
step closer yeah, you gottawonder if this takes place with
Trent Baalke a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Is Ben Johnson and his GM of choice about to sign
on the dotted line withJacksonville, right?
So many of these things, somany of these what-ifs, and you
know, I am obviously veryfrustrated today.
I'm very excited because thisfinally happened, but like just
so incredibly frustrated becauseI kind of like liken it to what
went on is going on with thecowboys, right, like they got
(15:56):
off to a late start because theycouldn't figure out what they
wanted to do with mike mccarthyand, uh, you know, all of that
is just, like I said,frustrating is the word that's
going to come up here a lot.
So what about some other things?
Jay, um, you know the mikebarangazi of it all, um, over
there, tennessee, and obviouslyright now, in terms of that team
, you know they got the numberone overall pick new general
(16:17):
manager.
So what are you?
You know what kind of reactiondid you had to them getting your
guy.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Oh, I absolutely hate it, man.
And I hate it because theTitans are somewhat competent
and the reason I bring that upis with the right GM, they can
close the gap between them andthe Jazz very quickly, if not
within this season.
So for them to get a guy who Ipraised a lot and I think will
(16:45):
be a very good GM in MikeBorgunzi and the resources
that's available to him, notlike the number one overall pick
so you might be looking at likea Shadur Sanders at quarterback
or something like that, youknow that is concerning, and a
lot of this boils down to theJaguars incompetence.
(17:06):
Right, they could have beenfurther ahead of the Titans by
this point when they got bornborn Gunsey.
But here we are just now firingtheir GM, and I even said this
to Phil when they said that theywere going to be hiring born
Gunsey, I said that, yeah, we.
That's all the more reason toget rid of Trent Balky, because
(17:30):
when that man works his magic,he's no doubt.
If Trent Balky is the GM forthis team, he's going to catch
us, and it likely wouldn't bedue to necessarily the talent,
because Trent was able to bringtalent in here here and there.
Well, no, I take that back LikeI think Borgonzi would
out-talent him in terms oftalent acquisition.
(17:51):
I guess that's hard to saybecause we never seen the man at
work yet, but I think he wouldtoo.
But it was just also because Idon't think Mike Borgonzi is
going to set his organizationback from the standpoint of not
having that level of seeing eyeto eye with their head coach.
That would make the transitionas smooth as possible as well,
(18:13):
meanwhile, whereas any coachthat we would have hired would
have had to always look overtheir shoulder and have a power
struggle with Trent Baalke.
That doesn't help a team at all.
It's more than just puttingtogether the talent.
It's some other things that canhold you back too as well.
We've seen plenty of supertalented teams, by the way, feel
not play to their expectations.
(18:35):
So it's more than just thetalent thing and a talent
acquisition thing.
No, it's about being inlockstep with each other and
seeing eye to eye, which issomething that was important in
Ben Johnson's eyes and a lot ofthese other people's eyes as
well.
So, that being said, man, likeit was disappointing to see them
get him.
It's even more disappointingnow, now that we're looking at
(18:57):
it in hindsight, phil, that wefired Trent Baalke.
What?
Two days after they hired him.
If we would have just maybewaited, you know, or not waited,
but if we would have startedthis process a little bit longer
ago, we could have been one ofthe teams interviewing him as
well, mike Brongunzi.
So yeah, that's realdisappointing from that
(19:19):
standpoint, now that I'mreflecting on it is, you know,
we got rid of Trent Baalke twodays after Mike Brongunzi was
off of the market.
Mike, how disappointing is that.
So, yeah, I share thosesentiments with you when you say
, like it's a frustratingprocess and still, but at the
(19:45):
same time, again, there is asmall ray of hope now that this
team doesn't have Trent Balky,at least, at the end of the day,
the end goal and the bestresult that was needed happened
just a little bit late.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, so let's get into it.
The elephant in the room, whateverybody is talking about here
in Jacksonville and throughoutthe entire fan base the
Jacksonville Jaguars finally,finally moved on from Trent
Bulkey.
A statement from ShotKhan cameout here earlier today.
Following several discussionswith Trent Balky this week, we
(20:22):
both arrived at the conclusionthat is in our mutual best
interest to respectfullyseparate effective immediately.
Trent leaves us with my deepestappreciation for his efforts
over the past five seasons.
Ethan Wall will serve asinterim general manager and play
an important role with othersas we continue the process of
interviewing candidates to serveas our new head coach.
(20:44):
I am deeply committed tobuilding a winner here in
Jacksonville and look forward tointroducing a new head coach
who will make that happen forour players and fans alike.
So there it is.
That news dropped a couple ofhours ago.
Here Once again, we'rerecording this about 6 pm on
Wednesday and everybody'sscreaming from the rooftops
(21:05):
about how excited they are andrightfully so, but also, at the
same time, so many otheranalysts and also fans, you know
, wondering why now, what tookso long, you know when?
I'm sure Shad Khan is able toidentify people within the
(21:27):
league that could tell him hey,this is going to hamper your
coaching search if you keep thisguy around, and I'm pretty sure
we mentioned that a couple ofweeks ago and he instead decided
to proceed with Trent Balkebecause I don't know.
He likes the way he talks, helikes the way that he dresses,
he likes the way that he feedshim information, whatever it is,
(21:50):
we will never know.
Hopefully we will.
Someday There'll be adocumentary or something.
But this decision comes acouple weeks too late.
But, like you said, better latethan never, I suppose.
But initial reactions jay tothis finally taking place.
You know you've already touchedon it, obviously a little bit,
(22:11):
but trebolke has now gone intotwo franchises, essentially left
them a mess.
Now the niners, of course, haverecovered and jury's still out
on what will happen here.
But this is just an incrediblefumble of a process by shod khan
and the organization to keep aguy around that within the
(22:35):
league nobody wants to work withRight and you say no, we're
going to go ahead and pushforward and stay the course on
this route.
And if you listen to the last,you know the last episode.
I told you as soon as this newsbroke, I called the ticket
office immediately and canceledmy season tickets.
I'm still not going to go back.
In case you guys are wondering,I'm still not going to go back.
In case you guys are wondering,I'm still not calling them and
(22:55):
say, hey about that, let's runit back.
No, they've got to prove to methat they're going to win.
Even if they get a competent GMand head coach in here, they've
still got to prove that theycan win in the field.
It's a whole other story.
So just take us back over thelast couple hours.
You know again, trent Baalkefinally out as no longer the
general manager of theJacksonville Jaguars and we can
begin the healing process, Isuppose.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, that's the key right there is.
We can begin the healingprocess.
But what's real frustratingabout it is this you know,
before the search took place,right, reports say that Sean
Conn was told that keepingBaalke would make the process
harder and he did it anyway.
That's what's frustrating aboutit.
He did it anyway.
(23:38):
He had people advising himright to go in this with a clean
slate and find a GM and a headcoach, as opposed to going into
it with a GM looking for a headcoach.
And it cost them dearly and itprobably, you know people say
that.
You know they don't believethat Sean Cunn gets embarrassed
(23:59):
and this, that and the other,and I believe he does.
But at the end of the day, themoney he's raking in makes you
feel better about thatembarrassment.
But I think what happened islike he just got tired of
striking out on opportunities.
Right, ben Johnson choosing thechicago bears over us, right,
which that's a story in itself,because ben johnson is going to
(24:23):
a situation he wanted to come tojacksonville.
It was well known he wanted tocome to jacksonville, right, and
yet he passed on theopportunity to come to
jacksonville and maybe even aplace in jacksonville that was a
little bit in terms of the cityitself, a little bit more
low-key than Chicago or LasVegas, which is something that,
like you know, a lot of peoplesaid he kind of wanted or have
(24:43):
alluded to.
But instead of coming toJacksonville, he passed on the
Jaguars, obviously because ofBalky, and he's going into a
situation this is what'seye-opening and it maybe this
even opened up Khan's eyes, bothTony and shot.
He's going into a situationwhere he is going in to a
division where, with that heknows very well albeit, but it's
(25:07):
one of the better divisions infootball, right?
He also made this decision, andanother eye-opening thing that
came out of it was choosingCaleb Williams over Trevor
Lawrence, right?
So that was another eye-openingthing that probably caught
Khan's attention.
But we shouldn't even got tothat point because, again, you
were advised before the draft togo, or before this search to go
(25:33):
ahead fire balky, because itwould cost you dearly.
So what I said I'm saying allof this to say this it took for
him to see ben johnson going tothat situation, which isn't
appeal as appealing as thejacksonville jaguar situation,
and it's an uphill battle forben johnson and he's willing to
take that risk, by the way, as afirst year head coach.
(25:55):
It took him going to thatsituation for Khan to say like
hey, ok, the people that advisedme the first time around were
right.
And also, too, what kind ofbugs me about this situation is
that and we saw this in the Zoomconference with Khan and Balky
is he basically alluded to nothaving enough of a ear to the
ground or enough of arelationship with other people
(26:19):
in the organization outside ofBalky?
Now, sure you know he mentionedEthan Waugh is somebody he kind
of leans on, which you knowhe'll be assisting with the GM
search, and it's probably a fewothers.
But obviously it's clear thathe doesn't listen enough to the
scouting department and how theymaybe feel about Trent right,
(26:39):
because you can't tell me theylove the guy and others.
You know others within thecoaching staff and how they felt
about Trent, although you endedup firing them, but it still
would have been good to know howthey felt about the
relationship with Trent Baalke.
So that just kind of shows methat he doesn't have enough of a
understanding and connectionwith the rest of the fan base or
(27:00):
the rest of the organizationoutside of Trent to understand
that this guy was an issue.
And then we go on to the LiamCohen situation.
I guess that was the, as theysay, the straw that broke the
camel's back right.
They probably I mean youdiscussed this beforehand before
recording they probably had thejet gassed up, they probably
(27:21):
were feeling high and mightyabout how the situation would go
, but at the end of the day,trent Baalke was still the GM
and that probably played a bigrole in him saying you know what
, actually, I'll stay here whereI am.
Then that's when I realized,like OK, like I probably should
have took the advice of whoeverwas advising me before this
(27:43):
search to fire this guy, becauseI would be much further along
and this would have been a mucheasier process than it is.
So ultimately, man, what'sreally just frustrating about
the whole situation is that shotkhan put one person ahead and
one person's situation ahead ofthe whole franchise, right, and
(28:07):
it took this long for him tounderstand that nobody, nobody,
not even you can, even owner.
You can even argue that theowner's not even a person that
should be put ahead of thefranchise.
Nobody should be prioritized orput ahead of the organization
to the point where it hindersthem like this.
And yet nonetheless, he stillhung on to Trent and it hindered
(28:29):
the Jaguars in a very, verynegative way and, uh, it's just
sad to see it get to this point.
But the man's gone now and wecan begin the healing process
yeah and again, as this.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
This does deserve like.
We deserve to celebrate, likejaguar fans, we deserve to be
happy about this, but it is justpaired with so much frustration
and just the lack of awarenessfrom somebody who, like we said
last or the last episode, who isobviously incredibly smart
(29:06):
shotgun.
You don't get to be where youare in terms of financial and
professional success on accidentand we said it last episode
like if he ran his otherbusinesses the same way he runs
the Jacksonville Jaguars.
There's no way he would be inthe position that he is in now.
So how did it get to this pointwhere, after you know, liam
(29:29):
Cohen made his decision and whoknows what's going to happen
with that now?
We'll talk about that here injust a moment because I want to
get your thoughts, jay.
After losing out on Ben Johnson,liam Cohen turning it down, how
did it take so long to get tothis point?
It just doesn't make any senseto me.
Maybe things can turn aroundwith the right guy, but I think
(29:53):
you guys mentioned this in thespaces this morning.
Jay, yeah, shod khan doesn'tknow enough about running a
football team.
So what would be like the worstcase scenario here, moving
forward in terms of like who thenext general manager could be.
(30:14):
I think we talked, like boogiewas mentioning it in the in the
group chat like keeping ethanwaugh, like is appointing ethan
waugh as the gm, because that'skind of how Trent Baalke stuck
around right after Dave Caldwell, like you know, baalke was
already in the building and hejust got appointed that job,
which, from the get, we knew wasgoing to be a terrible idea.
So like what would be?
I don't think it would be aworse situation because Trent
(30:37):
Baalke was the worst, but likewhat would be?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
either a, like a, you know, a, a lateral move or a
move that just would not pushthe needle in terms of what
comes next for that particularposition yeah, that's the one,
ethan waugh, I mean it, thatit's always for me, even when
we've had discussions of thepossibility of trent being
removed and a lot of peoplewould joke like, well, he'll
(31:02):
just promote Ethan, why?
And I always say like, no,that's not.
It, that's not.
And that's why, if you alwayslook at my tweets, why I have
always carefully worded it as aclean sweep, and by clean I mean
also within the front office,getting somebody that's not
currently in the front officeand I think I probably tweeted
(31:25):
it exactly like that in the pastas well, like getting somebody
that's not currently in thefront office.
And look, this is nothingagainst Ethan Waugh.
We don't even know the guy, wedon't know a lot about the guy,
but anybody who signs off on,you know, joining Trent Baalke
and, look, it was probably theopportunity of a lifetime.
But anybody who answered andwas a yes man to Trent Baalke,
(31:47):
or whatever the case may be,isn't going to cut it for me.
You know what I'm saying,because you were part of the
problem and you were part of theproblem that didn't speak out
as well.
And we probably can come tothat conclusion because, as Sean
Conn said in the Zoomconference.
Ethan is one of the people healso speaks to about football
(32:07):
advice.
So for Ethan to not say, hey,even though I'll be, trent
Baalke was his boss, hey, Idon't think Trent is the guy
that you want leading this team,you know, because there's
friction between him and thecoaches leading this team.
You know, because there'sfriction between him and the
coaches and you know there wasfriction when he was with the
(32:28):
San Francisco 49ers, him notspeaking up and saying anything
and just basically lettingthings go on as they are.
He was part of the problem.
So if he is named the GM, didyou really get, did you make an
upgrade there?
You know, and who's who's to saymaybe ethan is a better overall
person and will be in morelockstep with the coaches.
(32:49):
Be, um, better, just as a humanbeing with the coaches and what
have you?
He probably could be.
But again, going back to what Iwas saying, the fact that you
didn't step up and speak up anddiscuss with shot the things
that Trent was doing wrong andthe connection he had with the
coaching staff, the fact thatyou didn't step up and say
(33:12):
anything tells me all I need toknow about Ethan Waugh and that
he shouldn't be the guy leadingthe way in terms of him being a
GM heading forward.
So that's one of them.
You know, there was a point intime also, phil, where I thought
that Tony Bocelli would be agood EVP, but after the things
(33:32):
he said I'm not sure he's fit tobe an EVP.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Keep him away, keep him away.
We can separate Tony the playerand Tony the Jaguar legend from
whatever he is now.
But yeah, no, keep him awayfrom the front office man.
I don't want any part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Right, I agree.
So that would be another badscenario that wouldn't move the
needle for me, you know, withhim being the EVP Now look,
granted, he doesn't have bulkyblinders on anymore because the
guy is gone.
But again, just, it's all aboutwhat you said and what you did
in the past.
Sometimes, and especially inthe recent past, just as I was
(34:08):
saying for Ethan, the same canbe applied for Tony Him having
the blinders on for Balky whenBalky was here and was the GM,
and just not.
And me and you discussed thisin the last podcast, in the last
episode, phil, and not callingit like it is right.
If there is anybody thatdeserves to speak their mind to
Sean Cunn and call it like it ison this planet, one of those
(34:32):
people is Tony Bocelli, becausehe has spent blood, sweat and
tears and he's put blood, sweatand tears onto the field as a
player he was here before Seanwas here and tears onto the
field as a player.
He was here before Shaw washere.
If it's anybody who deserves tospeak their mind and speak the
truth and say what needs to besaid to get this franchise fixed
and not be held against them,it's Tony Bocelli.
But nonetheless, he wasbasically a bootlicker to Balki
(34:58):
in the process, balky in theprocess.
But I think Bocelli, out ofanybody, is a guy that could
have gone to Shaw and let himknow.
This guy's probably not who youwant to lead your franchise and
Shaw not holding it against him, or I guess you could be scared
(35:20):
of losing your job, whateverthe case may be if you're Tony
Bocelli.
But you know, if it's anybodythat deserves to speak truths
about what's going on with thisfranchise to shot Cullen is
absolutely Tony Bocelli and youknow shot.
I would think shot will respectthat being that, as I said,
tony has put blood, sweat andtears into this team.
So those are two bad scenarios.
Right there for me is EthanWaugh and the Tony Bocelli
(35:44):
situation.
So I just hope you know shotand it is shot come.
But I just hope that shotdoesn't have it in his mind and
his mind made up like we'll justpromote Ethan Waugh up to the
GM position Because again, hewas a part of the problem.
He was part of Balky's team anddid nothing to fix it.
So we'll see in time, we'lltell and you know, hopefully
(36:08):
we'll see how they go about inthe head coach search.
I don't know if they'll get acoach.
Then they'll look for a GM orthey'll just reset everything
after they speak with Sala andCoach Graham and they'll start a
GM search and then, like, maybecircle around two coaches and
that'll give them more time tomaybe even like include Joe
Brady in the mix for a secondinterview too.
(36:29):
We'll see a lot of questionsneed to be answered after this
point heading forward yeah, Iagree, definitely to completely
clean house.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
That's what needs to happen.
Like we're so close.
Like just go ahead and finishoff the process, you know what I
mean.
Like just go ahead and find thetwo guys that are going to be
in lockstep, that are going towork together to to bring this
thing in your turn, to turn thisthing around in a division that
, like you said, is verywinnable, like I, I kind of
agree.
Like, so shout out again toJacob this morning in the in the
(37:02):
spaces Like I don't know if BenJohnson's going to work out of
it as a head coach.
I am definitely much more.
I feel like Aaron Glenn willprobably, as a head coach, will
probably be a little bit moresuccessful.
But like you're telling me thatBen Johnson couldn't have
cooked something up with TrevorLawrence, btj, those two running
backs like we've talked aboutin the past.
Like that's why he probably waslegitimately interested in this
(37:24):
job.
Right, and because of theineptitude of the, you know,
starting at the very top, wemissed out on him, missed out on
Aaron Glenn, possibly LiamCohen.
We will see what happens next.
But, yeah, just go ahead andclean the whole cabinet and get
two people in here, startingfrom the top, that are going to
work together to bring in thestaff that they want, you know.
(37:48):
So hopefully that's what we'llsee happen, you know you already
alluded to it there a littlebit jay, like what's going to
happen first, you know, do theybring in the coach first in the
gm?
Is liam cohen now back in themix, do you think?
You know I think I saw Dillatweeting about it like there's
probably already conversationshappening now what happens with
(38:08):
this search?
Because you know we're, youknow Robert Sala is about to
come in for a face-to-face.
Like what does this mean?
Are they waiting on?
Like a Joe Brady, cliffKingsbury, you know, kellen
Moore?
Like, are these guys now in themix, as they have two positions
to fill now instead?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
of just one.
Yeah, the others should be inthe mix because for the simple
fact that um, I think it was, Iforgot what reporter it was that
revealed this but balky was inon the interview, so he was a
part of the interview process.
Right Now that he's gone, youshould absolutely include others
.
Therefore, you're casting in awide net.
(38:47):
What's the point in firingBalky if you don't cast a wide
net, as opposed to, like, maybe,guys that he was considering,
for the simple fact that Cohenand Ben Johnson obviously didn't
want him there.
Those probably weren't his toppreferences.
But the guys that are remaining, for example, robert Saleh and
(39:09):
Patrick Graham who's to saythose aren't top bulky choices.
So you don't have to lockyourself in to just solely bulky
choices.
Now that he's gone, you can casta wider net and now that you
know Ethan Wise, the assistantor the interim GM, you know you
can maybe go into the situationwith a little bit more of an
(39:30):
open mind of who the coach couldbe.
That being said, yeah, I mean Ireally hope that.
I don't want to say that theyreset it entirely.
Go ahead and do your interviewswith Graham and your second
interviews with Graham and Sala,but I do hope that it resets it
in the sense that they'll, youknow, wait for Cliff Kingsbury
(39:53):
and you know, wait for Joe Bradywhen he's eligible to do an
interview as well.
But you know, time will tell onthis.
And uh, what was your otherquestion?
It was another key question youhad put in there that was
basically it.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like, are they waiting on some of these other
candidates?
Like, do you, uh, what doesthis mean for the interviews you
already had, which you you justanswered?
And, uh, you know, do they tryand get the gm first or do they
do the head coach first?
Like, what does this do for the, the timing, essentially, and
also too, yeah, you, yeah, youmentioned Liam Cohen.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Do they circle back around?
That's right that was the bigone.
Yeah, so yeah with Liam.
Yes, absolutely you do.
And the reason you do it too isbecause, like, really, you were
the only team that he was onthe radar for.
Like, nobody else interviewedhim which somebody could see.
You know some folks would saythat's a red flag.
If somebody could see, you know, some folks would say that's a
(40:44):
red flag.
But circle back around to that.
You know he hasn't signed acontract Not that that matters
for the upgrade and pay to bethe offensive coordinator for at
least one more season orwhatever the case may be.
But yeah, circle back around toit.
Because now Liam Cohen is wellaware that you know Trent Baalke
is gone, and not only that.
(41:04):
You know Liam Cohen is in asituation where he understands
like I think we all understandnow, especially the coaches the
unique thing about this is nowwe all understand that Shaq Khan
is just simply lost in thissituation.
So Liam Cohen now knows rightthat and it shouldn't fall on
him.
This is how disjointed andridiculous this coaching search
(41:25):
is.
He now knows that, like I mighthave to help if they hire a
coach first, or hire me first, Imight have to help them find a
GM, but also, at the same time,who's been briefing him on not
joining the Jacksonville Jaguars?
A bunch of executives in theBucs front office.
So he's been establishingcommunication with these
(41:47):
executives and whatnot.
So he basically has beenspeaking with people that he can
bring in with him to be the GM.
Again.
That shouldn't fall on him.
That's a lot to ask of a coach,especially a first-year head
coach.
But hey, you've been speakingwith these people anyway about
if you will take the job, or youshould take the job with the
Jaguars and not Now.
(42:07):
The conversation is now do oneof y'all want to come with me?
You know, can one of you helpguide me on this process,
whether that's Mike Greenberg,obviously, john Spitek, I think
he's going to join the Raiders,so he'll be their GM, so he'll
be gone.
But yeah, the conversation nowbecomes hey, mike, do you want
to come with me to Jacksonville?
(42:28):
You know I would definitelysuggest you in the second
interview with Shahid Khan as aguy to interview and you know,
like you would be my lot forbeing a GM and you know we could
turn this thing around, likethe books, like we have with the
books.
So I think that makes a more,much more interesting
conversation for the coachesthat they want to interview now,
(42:49):
because now those coaches feelwill have an added job now to.
To answer your question, willthey feel GM first and then go
to a head coach?
I think, just in how disjointedthe Cons have been and how
they've operated, with themalready putting effort into a
coaching search, I think they'llcontinue with that and then
(43:13):
fill out the GM role.
I mean, what's the point inkeeping Ethan Wise, the interim,
you know, if you're not goingto continue to interview coaches
?
So I think like they'llprobably look for a coach first,
which is a little bit backwards, but they only have themselves
to blame.
They'll look for a coach firstand then they'll surf around to
a GM situation after that.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Well, as we kind of wrap up this conversation here,
jay, you know if you want tothrow out some names, obviously
we had our episode earlier inthe year as far as GM candidates
and head coaching candidates.
So who's left out there nowthat they kind of have to reset
and essentially start fromscratch in terms of, you know,
the highest position that theyneed to fill?
And you want to throw out somenames before we wrap up this
(43:56):
episode?
And you know, obviously we'vementioned them a few of them
here right now.
Do you have a new ranking nowthat some of those guys are off
the list?
Obviously, vrabel was high onour list, ben Johnson, aaron
Glenn, some of these other guys.
What does that list look likenow if you were to be put in
charge of where they should looknext?
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, like many of my guys from our list earlier,
feel that we made are gone.
Right, they've taken jobs and,in the case of some of them,
some of them don't look as goodas they once did.
Like Bobby Sloic, I had himpretty high on my list.
Now it's like, uh, you know,he's kind of falling down on
some people's list.
I mean, he still does have theconnection to the Shanahan tree,
(44:41):
so it's not like the guy haslost the ability to coach it.
You know it could more so be.
His quarterback isn'tperforming like he once did as a
rookie, so that could be onething.
So still, nonetheless, I kindof would pass on Slug right now.
Todd Munkin was on that list,right, I wouldn't mind, you know
, doing a second interview withTodd Munkin.
I know like the big thing withhim is, you know, doing a second
interview with Todd Monk, and Iknow like the big thing with
(45:03):
him is, you know, he's up therein age, so you know he's closer
to 60.
But nonetheless, though, justwhat he's been able to do with
the personnel that he had,whether it was in Georgia or
whatever the case may be, he'sone of those guys that it's like
hey, whatever you got, we'llcater the scheme to them, them
(45:23):
we'll make it work and we'llhave success doing it right.
So he's just had this widearray of different personnel and
each time right, he has beenable to make great offenses out
of that.
And also he just has aconnection with the jazz.
He used to be a coach with themunder jack del rio.
But I would definitely say thelist has changed in the sense
that you know, we didn't evenhave Cohen on the list that we
(45:46):
made right.
He was a guy that just kind ofcame out of nowhere, and
rightfully so.
And you know that's not a badthing because he's much like
Monken.
He's done the best he couldwith what he has and that's why
he's now risen to the top of mylist.
So I would put him at the topof the list and then I would
probably put, like Todd Munkinas that second guy, or well, no,
(46:08):
no, we uh Joe Brady as thatsecond guy, then Munkin as the
third, because I do think westill should go with the
offensive guy, and it's eveneasier to do now that Aaron
Glenn is off of the list.
I'm not opposed to Robert Sala,I just keep getting hung up on
who would he bring as theoffensive coordinator, right?
So that's just the only thingwith him.
(46:29):
But who's to say with thesecond chance he won't have
success?
Because that was a prettycrappy situation with the Jets.
You know him having to take inAaron Rodgers Woody Johnson is
kind of a meddlesome owner who'sto say he won't have success
with the right offensive hire,that is, with the Jacksonville
Jaguars?
So you know he will besomewhere on my list, not at the
(46:52):
top or top two.
I would definitely look at someoffensive mind over him.
But now that Balky's gone andnow that it's a kind of a clean
sweep, yeah, I would be OK withhim with the right officer
coordinator and of course, theright GM as well.
But those are the two keythings with him.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
What about the name that I threw out in the spaces
this morning, jay?
In terms of Mike McCarthy, Imentioned this that I know that
would not necessarily be aneedle mover and some people
might think it's a retread, andyou had a good response to that,
so I'll have you echo that herein a moment.
But I mean to go into Dallasand have a owner like Jerry
(47:32):
Jones, who is just constantlywants to be the center of
attention, makes it incrediblydifficult for anybody to do
their job.
I mean, we're talking aboutdating back to the 90s, about
how difficult it has been towork with Jerry Jones and to
come out and have three straight12 win seasons.
Obviously, what happened lastyear you know this past season
out of his hands, injuriesdepleted that team and also
Jerry Jones running.
(47:53):
You know that team.
As far as you know thecontracts that he did to get out
there CeeDee Lamb, dak Prescottan absolute mess.
I said this when they you knowthis when the Cowboys decided to
move on to him, I said that theJaguars should call Mike
McCarthy.
So what do you think about thatguy?
Because I think this is a verysimilar situation to Chicago,
(48:15):
where they need a provenfranchise leader, like somebody
that can come in and knows howto do things correctly and put
together a culture.
That's the culture center.
That's what they need, and Ithrew Mike McCarthy's name out
there.
I know a lot of people wouldn'tbe incredibly excited about
that, but I think it's somethingthey should consider.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, you mentioned him in the space and at that
time Balky was hired, right.
So my big thing that I wasechoing in the space was like,
yeah, mike McCarthy strikes meas a guy, being that he will be
coming from Dallas Cowboys anddealing with the situation he
dealt with there and Jerry, hewould be a guy that I feel like
would come to the Jaguarsorganization and would speak up
(48:55):
for himself, kind of like Trent,not Trent, but Doug didn't do
right, not at least not enough,and that's part of why Doug is
not here.
Right, doug wanted an offensivelineman or offensive lineman
last offseason and what Trentdid was went out there and got
him a 34 year old Mitch Morse,right?
That's not.
I don't think that'snecessarily what Doug had in
(49:17):
mind when he was saying we needto fix this offensive line.
He was probably saying we needto get younger, we need to get
stronger, right?
So anyway, I said all of thatto say this he was a guy that I
thought would have Going throughall of the hoops and the
hurdles to get the personnelneeded, whereas Doug wasn't able
to and didn't.
(49:37):
Right, I think he would be aguy that would.
You know, mike McCarthy we'retalking about here would be a
guy that would go in to get intoshotguns here and say like, hey
, you know, trent wants to draftthis guy, but I want to draft
this guy and I want to help theoffense Right, and I want to do
what's best for Trevor Lawrence,right, and I think he would be
one of those guys that would beable to kind of sway shotgun a
(49:58):
little bit better and have abetter chance to sway shotgun
better than any of the othercoaches we had when they've had
these discussions of a situationwhere it's Trent versus Doug or
Trent versus the coaches, right.
So there's that, and then alsotwo.
Something I want to add to thatPhil is another name that came
to mind.
I tweeted about it that kind offits that mold of McCarthy.
(50:21):
Pete Carroll right, we didn'tdiscuss him in the space.
Now why not maybe circle backto him?
Because Trent Baalke is gone?
Right, you obviously might needsomebody with experience and
also you obviously might needsomebody who can help you with
the GM search.
If you're going to hire thehead coach first, what about him
?
Right, and you still can maybeeven go with your plans to bring
(50:43):
in Salah Salah, who you knowwas under.
Pete Carroll could be hisdefensive coordinator.
You have your head coachingwaiting.
That's something that you'vethrown out there right, and you
have the present and the futuretaken care of.
And you also have a guy, peteCarroll, as I just mentioned,
that can help shot Cunninghamfrom a standpoint of getting
that GM search done.
So now Pete Carroll becomes anintriguing name, in my opinion,
(51:06):
to look for heading forward.
That's not me saying I have asource or anything on it, that's
just a guy that I would lookfor.
Granted that the Jaguars havegone through this disjointed
process and have fired Balkilate, now you kind of need a
Pete Carroll like presence tohelp you through the way.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
I agree.
Yeah, pete Carroll would be aslam dunk hire.
There are rumors out there thatthe Niners have discussed Pete
Carroll as their potentialdefensive coordinator if Robert
Sala doesn't come throughC.
And then you know Pete Carrollknows enough people within his
(51:48):
coaching tree and within theleague that he could bring in
the competent and the correctoffensive coordinator and then,
like you said, assist with thisGM search.
And then you could even make ita situation where because I
know a lot of people areconcerned that Pete Carroll is
obviously a little bit older butyou could make it so that you
know you have a Robert Sala as acoach in waiting or whoever the
(52:08):
offensive coordinator is.
Like that that is, I think,would be an excellent situation,
and that is something that Ithink would make me reconsider
in terms of financially.
I would be like OK, now I canbuy back in, now I can look into
maybe getting the seasontickets again.
Maybe getting the seasontickets again, right, because as
(52:29):
of right now and as of you know, even a month ago, it's a bad
financial decision for me and abunch of other people, in my
opinion, to give their hardearned money to this team that
again has not shown to beserious about winning.
So I would.
I would love Pete Carroll andthat circumstance that you just
laid out here, jay.
(52:50):
So, yeah, those are some namesthat I think I'd be very excited
to hear about over the nextcouple of weeks, including the
Joe Brady's.
I still don't know about CliffKingsbury.
I mean I know a lot of peoplewere saying like, hey, look at
Cliff Kingsbury, when you givehim a quarterback, they can see
over the line of scrimmage.
Brisberry, when you give him aquarterback, that can see over
the line of scrimmage.
You know, like, kyler murray,you know obviously wasn't great
(53:13):
and still isn't great over therein arizona, but I mean, I just
think he's probably having toomuch of a great time with jayden
daniels and what they'rebuilding over there.
You know, like what a greatstory they have been.
I mean, can you imagine?
I can't imagine, actually Ican't imagine a situation in
which we see Jayden Daniels andthe commanders in the Super Bowl
in a couple of weeks.
That is not out of the realm ofpossibility.
The way that they played, theway that they have been playing
(53:35):
throughout the entire playoffs.
They could do it, man, theycould definitely do it.
But obviously there is so muchthat is going to happen over the
course of the next few weeks,of the next few weeks, jay, I'm
sure we could probably seeourselves recording more so on a
weekly basis once this startsto shape out, which is crazy,
because we had essentially beenplanning for, like, the draft
(53:56):
and then who knows what wasgoing to happen with this
podcast.
Now there is still a lot ofopportunity for ShotKon to F
this up, but hopefully that'snot going to be the case and we
have a little bit of juice hereon the Touchdown ChatWars
podcast, a little bit of arejuvenation.
So we'll see what happens.
But anything else you want tomention before we wrap up this
impromptu episode you know, goout there and celebrate
(54:19):
Jacksonville, go out there andcelebrate that we finally got
Trambolki out, but also continueto hold the franchise
accountable.
There is still a lot of work tobe done and we all deserve
better, All of us, all the fans,all the people that bust their
ass in terms of writing for thisteam.
I know we don't normally curseon this podcast, but I felt like
it was necessary.
All the people that work reallyhard covering this team, like,
(54:42):
hold the team accountable, holdShotKhan accountable, because
there is a realm and a world inwhich this is a quick turnaround
because of the pieces that arehere.
So, jay, anything else you wantto mention before we get out of
here and patiently, impatiently, whatever it may be, wait to
see what happens next.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
No, I mean, you really bring up a great point
Now.
It kind of brings life to thesituation from a standpoint.
Now I can cover the draft LikeI hadn't even been watching
draft prospects, right, becauseI just didn't want to deal with
another Trent Baalke draft.
You know, and look, still, theycould still keep Ethan, but
still nonetheless, you know, nowthat opens up a reason to look
(55:20):
into draft prospects, right, wedon't have Michigan prospects
like blacklisted, basically,right, and it opens up this
potential excitement of you know, from the coaching perspective,
right, of who could thesecoaches bring in as their
offensive and defensivecoordinator?
Man, so yeah, man, it's, it's arenewed excitement.
(55:45):
But, as you said, we still doneed to hold the team
accountable and stay on themabout making the right decisions
and not further making this afurther disjointed process than
it already has been.
Right, you already got rid ofthe biggest problem.
All right, let's get on thisteam and then stay on them about
(56:07):
running this like aprofessional NFL franchise.
Right, let's have aprofessional looking interview
process, even if that includesresetting things and doing it
the right way getting a GM firstand getting a coach later,
whatever the case may be, if youwant to continue with the
coaches.
Still, that's fine as well, butlook like professionals in the
process, right?
(56:27):
All right, let's knock out thisstuff.
Man Shotgun is on past a decadeof being an the rest of this
interview process.
So that's what I'm hoping for,is it?
(56:51):
And that we don't look furtherdisjointed than we already have
been.
And yeah, we'll see where itleads us and what what we end up
with in terms of a coach andmaybe a GM.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
Yeah, you're going to want to make sure you keep up
with the Touchdown Jaguarspodcast for everything that you
need to know.
We will obviously be keeping avery, very close eye on this as
we enter a new era of Jaguarfootball.
It's crazy.
Like you know, we're on thesecond contract for Trevor
Lawrence.
Like that was the new era.
Trevor Lawrence was the new era, right, and now he's having to
(57:30):
deal with all this ineptitudewith josh hines, allen and tyson
campbell and evan ingram andbrian thomas jr and all these
guys that work so hard and andlove this team and love these
fans.
So hopefully we can get thisright because once again, like
there is an opportunity here ina division that is weakened, in
a division that has tennesseepicking number one and the colts
can't figure everything out anda Houston team although you
(57:52):
know I'm going to give creditwhere credit is due like two
divisional round appearances intwo years.
That's nothing to scoff about.
They also ran into the refereesand the Kansas City Chiefs,
much like we did a couple ofyears ago.
So there is an opportunity forus to be competitive very
quickly if they make the rightdecisions.
They also have a ton of capspace coming up here, you know.
So, hey, we can, we can getthis done, jaguar fans.
(58:14):
So we are going to becautiously optimistic, but also,
like we said, continue to holdthe team accountable and voice
your opinion.
Get out there, let the teamknow, let them know with your
words, let them know with yourmoney all of that.
But, folks, thank you so muchfor joining us on the touchdown
jaguars podcast continuing fornow as we get into the next,
(58:35):
hopefully, 100 episodes of thisshow.
This is episode 107, so thankyou all for walking with us once
again, link tree link.
In the show notes of theepisode you'll find everything
that you need the social mediapages for myself, j, jay, as
well as the podcast.
Keep up with us over on Twitterand we'll continue to again
give you everything that youneed for this GM and head coach
(58:57):
search.
But, folks, that is my cohost,james Johnson.
I am Phil Smith.
See you very, very soon.
Don't forget to tune intotouchdown Jaguars for each and
every Jaguar touchdown, andwe'll see you next time.
Folks, take care, stay warm andbe safe.
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