Liam Coen's Most Impressive Jaguars Hire Won't Be With Coaching Staff

Who will the Jacksonville Jaguars turn to in their search for a new general manager?

Jul 31, 2022; Irvine, CA, USA; Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Liam Coen during training camp at UC Irvine. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Jacksonville Jaguars have made one of the biggest hires in franchise history by tabbing Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Liam Coen as their next head coach.

Coen has a lot of work to do early on. The first-time head coach has to fill out his coaching staff as he navigates his first-ever opportunity leading a franchise.

But the most important hire Coen is set to have a hand in making won't be his offensive or defensive coordinator. Instead, it is in the front office.

The Jaguars are going the unconventional, but not entirely rare, route of hiring a general manager after they make their head coach hire. The Jaguars technically did this when they hired Urban Meyer in 2021 and then officially made Trent Baalke the full-time general manager a week later, but Meyer didn't have an influence over that search.

This time around, though, the Jaguars' head coach is prepared to have a big hand in finding the Jaguars' next front office leader. There is no question that the ability to walk into a franchise with a clean slate appealed to Coen following the Jaguars moving on from Baalke, and now Coen has a chance to have a say in how that slate is now arranged.

The Jaguars have not hired a head coach and a general manager from outside of the organization in the same season since 2013. Each time the team has had vacancies at one of the spots in past seasons, they have turned to in-house candidates like Baalke and former head coach Doug Marrone.

This time around, the Jaguars are set to embark on a chapter that finally rings in a new era. The Jaguars have gone for half measures before, but it looks like Coen is in place to have major influence on what kind of measures the Jaguars take next.

The last first-time head coach who was in a position like the one Coen is in now was Kyle Shanahan, and his hiring of John Lynch has paid off dividends in San Francisco. Coen has the chance to have the same kind of influence in Jacksonville, and how he navigates this hire will be a testament to how successful his Jaguars tenure will be.

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