Jaguars Owner Shad Khan on Decision to Fire Tom Coughlin: ‘Tom Was in Charge and the Last Two Years Were Not Where We Want to Be’
Lost in the shuffle of the Jacksonville Jaguars announcement on Tuesday to play two games in London, Shad Khan also elaborated on another one of the significant decisions he has made as the team owner in the past few months — firing Tom Coughlin.
“Tom was in charge and the last two years were not where we want to be," Khan said when asked about Coughlin on Tuesday. "That’s where you have to start."
Coughlin is an icon in Jacksonville due to his stint as the first-ever head coach in team history, but the aftermath of his three-year tenure as executive vice president of football operations was much less positive. Coughlin led the Jaguars to a 10-6 record and an AFC Championship appearance in his first year in charge in 2017, but things quickly went downhill afterward.
After a 5-11 record in 2018, which was the direct result of several poor Coughlin decisions (extending Blake Bortles, letting Allen Robinson leave for nothing), the Jaguars weren't much better in 2019.
On top of poor performance on the field and poor decisions off the field (signing Nick Foles to a massive contract), the Jaguars and Coughlin had to deal with the fallout of the NFLPA crashing down hard on the organization for not following labor rules.
Between bad relationships with the players union, poor performances on the field, and bad roster-building off the field, a change simply had to be made, which is what Khan said led to his decision to fire Coughlin before Week 16.
"Tom is iconic for Jacksonville. I think what he did at the start of the franchise and a couple of years ago, the first year he was there, we had a great season, but I thought we needed to make a change moving forward and that was really the key factor," Khan said. "I cannot emphasize that the results of the last season were not lost on me, so why not move in a different direction?”
While Khan said when he fired Coughlin that he had decided to do so months prior, Khan said Tuesday that what completed his decision was the Jaguars' play down the stretch in 2019. After starting the season 4-4, Jacksonville lost six of its final eight games, including a five-game losing streak that was comprised of 20+ point losses.
"We were a .500 team within reach of first place of the division right at the midway point. One game, two games in a row and we had the Minshew mania going, and then, boom," Khan said.
"We lost five straight and then lost two of the last three. A 6-10 team last year that did a good job dealing with a number of the off-field issues, but the bottom line is that we really underperformed. That completed the thought plan of what we needed to do going forward.”
