New Jaguars Regime Enjoying Advantages That Previous Ones Didn't

Here's something that happens quite a bit. A person buys a house, and when they go to move in, it's trashed. Furnishings that were supposed to remain are gone. the only thing that's new are unwanted rodents squatting in your home that you have a 30-year mortgage on. You're thinking Zillow punked you.

There's also the scenario where everything was left pretty nice, and the previous owner even upgraded before they sold it to you. Well, that happens in sports, as well. When James Gladstone, Liam Coen and their Jaguars staff moved in, they found a team with promise, not one in shambles. Other regimes weren't so fortunate. In the latest episode of the Jacksonville Jaguars Insider podcast, Beat Writer and Host John Shipley discussed this in full.

"One aspect of the exciting new times with the Jaguars that just has not been maybe talked about enough, has been the fact that this regime, overall is walking into an empty pantry. They don't have to spend years and years rebuilding the talent. An example of a Jaguars regime coming into an absolutely barren wasteland of a roster would be [former GM] Dave Caldwell and [former HC] Gus Bradley. Now, of course, Gus had his own issues in the NFL. Dave Caldwell, to me, pretty solid GM probably gets a worse reputation than he deserves. They simply were saddled with a roster that was years away from being years away. It was an expansion-level roster. It just truly was."

"And then, you hit the reset again after the 2020 season where they only win one game, getting a roster that was kind of stripped down for parts. Most of the good veterans on the team, they traded away for draft picks. You know, other than Josh Hines Allen, there just wasn't much on that roster to be excited about. To me, that is not the scenario that new Jaguars regime is entering. And to me, that should be one of the positives for at least perhaps knowing that the last regime was not necessarily thinking, 'Okay, it's time to swing through the fences for our job with every single decision'."

Shipley explained, "I don't think there was any point during Trent Baalke's regime as general manager where he kind of just put his head down and was like, it's over. You know? I mean, he extended Walker Little with just a couple weeks left in the season, his last major move as the Jaguars General Manager. So I don't think there was a sense from either one of them, really, in my opinion, of just letting the guard down. I guess you could say really, letting things kind of go to crap inside the house, inside the foundation for the Jaguars. I don't get the sense that that happened for the Jaguars."

Besides giving Little a new deal. There have been plenty of solid decisions made to not decimate, but upgrade, the football operations in Duvall.

"So to me, a positive you can say about the previous regime is that this new one is not coming into a completely barren roster. Josh Hines-Allen has obviously been here for several years. He predates that regime, but the last regime did give him his contract. They ensured Tyson Campbell would stay here for the long term. They ensured Trevor Lawrence would stay here for the long term. They picked Brian Thomas Jr, Buster Brown. They developed several of these other guys they're excited about. Brenton Strange, they drafted in the second and developed."

"I think when you're talking about being excited about some of these options on the Jaguars roster, you have to, at least, in my opinion, kind of remember where they came from. And to me, that is one positive of how Shad Khan and the Jaguars kind of went about their way with reshaping the previous front office. They never, at any point, were basically telling them, you know, you don't have to come into work tomorrow. It's time to stop trying to improve the roster. And I think it shows."

"I think, that the last regime did do plenty of good things. There were plenty of things, obviously, that they struggled at that the new regime now has to fix. The offensive line, the secondary, I think are the two biggest pieces of that. But certainly the last regime did do some positive things, and it just feels like it's not yet taboo to mention that, because I know the kind of the stranglehold that the Baalke narrative had in the fan base, etc, the community. I can also say that there are times when the previous regime did things we should respect. {But] obviously, the last regime's era ended in more mistakes than positives."

With that, the Jaguars think tank gets to come in and just due some light dusting, instead of having to put on hazmat suits and pray. This way they can go about moving forward and work on building a championship organization. But most of all, there's absolutely no need to sue Zillow.

Ensure you follow on X (Twitter) @JaguarsOnSI and @_John_Shipley and never miss another breaking news story again.

Please let us know your thoughts when you like our Facebook page WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE