New Jacksonville Jaguars front office and coaching staff is being misrepresented as a positive for a poorly run organization
Just days before the NFL combine in Indianapolis, the Jacksonville Jaguars have hired a new General Manager in 34-year-old James Gladstone. Gladstone comes over from the Los Angeles Rams where he worked most recently as the director of scouting strategy. He has also held positions as director of scouting, and senior assistant to the general manager/player personnel […]
Just days before the NFL combine in Indianapolis, the Jacksonville Jaguars have hired a new General Manager in 34-year-old James Gladstone.
Gladstone comes over from the Los Angeles Rams where he worked most recently as the director of scouting strategy. He has also held positions as director of scouting, and senior assistant to the general manager/player personnel coordinator.
34 years old is shockingly young for an NFL GM, But it’s not just Gladstone. The Jaguars now have, by far, the youngest brass in the entire league. Head coach Liam Coen is 39, offensive coordinator Grand Udinski is 29, and defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile is 42.
It is immediately being branded as a “youth movement” for the Jaguars…as if it’s completely deliberate. That’s a huge misrepresentation of what has really gone down in Jacksonville this offseason.
Jaguars botched hiring cycle
While the Jaguars’ new front office and coaching staff is youthful, it is also inexperienced. That’s a result of a botched hiring process by owner Shad Khan and a poorly run organization.
When every job in the organization is an unattractive job with little security, you are forced to hire under qualified candidates. That’s exactly what we’re seeing right now in Jacksonville. Gladstone, Coen, Udinski, and Campanile are all in their respective roles for the first time. That's not a coincidence.
Shad Khan's initial refusal to fire Trent Baalke chased away a lot of the top coaching candidates during this hiring cycle. You missed out on Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson. The Jaguars almost missed out on Liam Coen too before Khan got more aggressive financially to lure him out of Tampa.
But even once Coen was hired, you had a head coach without a GM. Most top GM candidates like having control of the future of the franchise when they take a job, They like going places with valuable draft picks and, ideally, no coaching staff in place. The more blank the canvas the better.
As the Jaguars were interviewing candidates, they were able to provide none of those things. Gladstone is in an arranged marriage with Liam Coen and Trevor Lawrence. Jacksonville's new GM had to be okay with that…So it makes a lot of sense that they would hire a 34-year-old that has a history with Coen in LA.
"James emerged as my choice, and our choice, following a painstaking but energizing interview process that left nothing to doubt," Jaguars Owner Shad Khan said in a statement.
Khan can praise this hire all he wants. I have no doubt that Gladstone won the job and impressed Khan over the other candidates who were brought in for an interview. But it doesn't change the fact that Jacksonville was picking from the leftovers because the owner dropped the ball over a month ago.
If you told Jaguars fans (and Shad Khan) before the offseason that it would be Liam Coen and James Gladstone as head coach and GM in 2025, there would have been outrage. So let's not celebrate it now as if youth is always a good thing.
ESPN analyst issues a challenge to Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders for NFL Combine that both prospects should avoid at all costs
Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders should avoid this at the NFL Combine.
