Column: Who Deserves the Blame for Mass Exodus of Jaguars Players?
Over the course of three years, every single NFL team changes. Some change gradually, with their core pieces remaining intact while the supporting cast goes through overhauls. But some change rapidly, with their foundational players leaving at a whirlwind place, leaving the team to pick up the pieces.
The Jacksonville Jaguars, of course, fall into the latter definition, but they likely deserve their own designation at this point. While some teams go through rebuilds over several seasons, the Jaguars haven't been attempting one, yet they have still hit the reset button on their roster completely.
In 2017, the Jaguars had a roster filled with six defensive Pro Bowlers, a few All-Pros, and excitement for the future. That year featured the Jaguars both win double-digit games and make the postseason for the first time since 2007.
The 10-6 Jaguars were not only AFC South Champions, but they were also among the most exciting teams in the league. Their defense was one of the best in the NFL at getting to the quarterback, forcing turnovers and scoring touchdowns, and they had the personalities on both sides of the ball to match.
Eventually, that team advanced to the AFC Championship after playoff victories vs. the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, but they would fall to the New England Patriots in a heartbreaking 24-20 loss.
Fast forward three years and the Jaguars' roster has been overhauled at such a fast rate that it is almost like whiplash when trying to keep up with it at times, especially in the last 72 hours alone.
Since Sunday morning, the Jaguars have made two moves of great magnitude. First, they traded 2017 Pro Bowler Yannick Ngakoue, a 25-year-old pass rusher who is second in franchise history in all-time sacks despite only playing for the team for four years, to Minnesota for a 2021 second-round pick and 2022 conditional fifth-round pick. Then yesterday, the team made the somewhat shocking move of releasing running back Leonard Fournette, the former No. 4 overall pick who was Jacksonville's workhorse during the 2017 season.
But while Ngakoue and Fournette are the latest Jaguars to depart Jacksonville, they are far from the only ones. In fact, they join most of the rest of the 2017 roster in leaving Jacksonville in only three seasons, with just 12 players from the 2017 team remaining.
A few notable names aside from Ngakoue and Fournette who have left, and the fashions they have left, can be examined below, though they are far from the only ones:
WR Allen Robinson: The first key Jaguars player to leave after 2017, Allen Robinson didn't play that year due to an ACL injury but the Jaguars still made the curious decision to not re-sign him following the year. Instead, the Jaguars invested money in Donte Moncrief and Marqise Lee, neither of whom are still on the roster.
DL Calais Campbell: The leader of Jacksonville's locker room, Calais Campbell was traded to the Baltimore Ravens for a 2020 fifth-round pick in March as a cap relief move. The move was understandable, but it was one made in part due to bad contract decisions previously.
CB Jalen Ramsey: The only player who had a messier divorce from the Jaguars than Ngakoue is Jalen Ramsey, who went to great lengths to get traded last season after a major falling out with the Jaguars' front office, namely Tom Coughlin. Ramsey would be traded to the Rams for two first-rounders, but his departure revealed just how fractured things were in Jacksonville.
CB A.J. Bouye: When A.J. Bouye was brought into the defense in 2017 to be a shutdown corner across from Ramsey, the expectations were for the two to be among the league's best tandems for years to come. Jacksonville got little back on their investment aside from Bouye's fantastic 2017 season before he was traded to the Broncos for a 2020 fourth-round pick.
DE Dante Fowler Jr.: Dante Fowler's departure may not seem like a gaffe since the Jaguars got valuable trade compensation for him, but it does reflect how much of a miss the Jaguars made when they selected him No. 3 overall in 2015. Fowler never grew into an above-average pass rusher, forcing the Jaguars to unload him to try to recoup some value.
QB Blake Bortles: Another former No. 3 overall pick, Blake Bortles struggled to find consistency as a starting quarterback in Jacksonville and 2017 is the only real season he left a positive mark. He was rewarded for his efforts in 2017 with a contract extension, despite him being just a supporting cast member that year, and he lasted just one more year before being released in favor of Nick Foles.
Any fans who have bought jerseys in the last several seasons now almost assuredly have buyer's remorse. The young building blocks who were supposed to the face of the team have all find their ways to different pastures. Pictures and billboards of Ramsey, Campbell and Ngakoue are gone, and in their places are those looking to find out who is truly to blame for the disintegration of the roster.
So, who does deserve the blame? As you can see above, there is plenty to go around. The Jaguars have taken misstep after misstep since their magical 2017 season, and it is hard not to place at least parts of the blame on each key member of the franchise's leadership during that period.
Head coach Doug Marrone may be less culpable than the other three members of the organization we will mention, but he still deserves a fair amount of blame for the team's 11-21 record over the last two seasons. Marrone has been dealt a bad hand in terms of roster mismanagement and micromanagement from Coughlin, but he is still the one who should be held accountable for the team's on-field failures. Too often the Jaguars have looked undisciplined, unprepared, and simply unable to put four quarters of good football together. Add in Marrone's reluctance to make a change at defensive coordinator, and Marrone doesn't go blameless in the Jaguars' fall.
General manager Dave Caldwell, meanwhile, called the shots in Jacksonville for four years before Coughlin arrived as the team's football czar. Caldwell inherited maybe the worst roster in the NFL, but through four years under Caldwell the Jaguars had a 15-49 record. The team whiffed on the hire of Gus Bradley before whiffing even harder on the selections of Bortles, Fowler and 2013 No. 2 overall pick Luke Joeckel, who spent just four seasons with the team.
Add in Caldwell's curious management of the Ngakoue situation, which saw the Jaguars cave two weeks before the season and trade the 25-year-old defensive end for a second-round pick and a conditional fifth. Had the Jaguars traded Ngakoue for the best possible offer during the 2020 NFL Draft, the Jaguars could have gotten draft picks to help them this year, along with cap relief. Now, the Jaguars have picks that won't factor in until next fall, while the cap space they are sitting on will likely go untouched due to a dwindled free agent field.
Of course, Tom Coughlin may deserve the most blame out of the three. He attempted to rule the Jaguars with an iron fist and it completely backfired, with the team instead losing every one of its best players and becoming a punchline throughout the league for mismanagement. Coughlin was in complete power during his three years with the team, so most pieces which have fallen apart since then are largely due to him.
Coughlin not only made the dreadful decision to select Fournette over Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes, but he foolishly decided to extend Bortles after a 2017 season in which the Jaguars spent all year trying to make him a non-factor. Bortles had six good quarters of play in the postseason, and it appears Coughlin made the integral decision to keep Bortles based almost solely on his play during those quarters.
You also can't bring up the Ramsey and Ngakoue fiascos without mentioning Coughlin as the root cause. He was the driving force behind Ramsey's divorce from the team, and his unwillingness to negotiate in good faith with Ngakoue in 2019 is what led to Ngakoue forcing a trade a year later.
But while Coughlin's failures are plentiful, one person can own the blame of them via proxy: owner Shad Khan, who entrusted Coughlin with his team.
Khan employed Coughlin and gave him complete power after the failures of the Caldwell/Bradley regime, though this was a curious move even then. Coughlin was a giant figure in the league and in Jacksonville at the time, but Coughlin's issues with being a front office executive date all the way back to his first tenure with the Jaguars. Anyone with knowledge of Coughlin's style knows he couldn't help himself from putting his fingerprints all over the team's coaching and locker room, and that is exactly what he did.
But at the end of the day, Khan let him. Khan let Coughlin make the mind-numbingly foolish decision to draft Fournette and, while it paid off for one year, continued to back him for the next several seasons. Coughlin ran rampant through the franchise, causing enough friction with players to cause the NFL Players Association to release a scathing indictment of the team after the union won a grievance against the franchise.
"The decision puts a stop to the blatant overreach by the Jaguars and emphasizes the voluntary nature of almost all football activities during the off-season. It should be noted that Jaguars players continue to be at odds with Jaguars management over their rights under the CBA for more than players on other clubs," the union said.
"In the last two years, more than 25% of the grievances filed by players in the entire league have been filed against the Jaguars. You as players may want to consider this when you have a chance to select your next club."
For a statement like this to come out, it means Coughlin was enabled to essentially do what he wanted without any true oversight. It was clear for years the issues Coughlin was causing within the franchise, even during the 2017 season. But it wasn't until shortly after the NFLPA publicly shamed the Jaguars that Khan held Coughlin accountable, firing him.
Marrone deserves blame for the Jaguars failing to be ready to play over the last two seasons. Coughlin and Caldwell both deserve plenty of blame for erroneously mismanaging Jacksonville's roster over the last several seasons, especially Coughlin. Coughlin specifically deserves the blame for most of Jacksonville's top players to rejoice when they finally leave the team.
But Khan deserves blame for letting it happen under his watch, especially when it comes to Coughlin. In a situation like this, there is more than enough blame to go around. But at the end of the day, the buck has to stop somewhere.
The Jaguars will hope that with the remnants of the 2017 roster and Coughlin gone, they can hit the reset button and build back up both the roster and their culture. But if they are to do so, they will need to learn lessons and perform some serious self-reflection. Until that happens, we will just continue to discuss who deserves blame for not winning enough football games.
