Shad Khan’s been in the office more this offseason. And on Sunday, as the Jaguars’ owner landed back in the States, in his adopted hometown of Champaign, Ill., from London late Sunday afternoon, he was already looking forward to getting back there again.
It’s undeniably a better place than it’s been.
That’s despite hiring a general manager in Trent Baalke whom few in his team’s fan base wanted him to retain. It’s even with the tumult of 2021 still a not-very-distant memory. It’s even if it took nearly two months, following the firing of Urban Meyer, for Khan to find the right head coach to pair with Baalke.
“The churn of constant hiring or firing, does that make you successful necessarily? Or even in certain circumstances, where that might be what seems to be the popular choice, is that really the right thing for the franchise?” Khan asked. “So when it was all said and done, I felt Doug [Pederson] and Trent, the chemistry was really good. They had known each other by reputation in the past, and I could compare them with the combinations of some of the other people.
“And then more importantly, what is the philosophy of the team? What kind of team are we going to be? What are we gonna do moving forward? You gotta get all of those things accounted for. And I can tell you that here almost four months down the road, I just couldn’t be more proud.”
For now, that doesn’t mean a ton. The Jaguars were the worst team in football last year, for the second straight year, and are on their third head coach over that time (fourth if you count 2021 interim coach Darrell Bevell). As such, this week, they’ll pick No. 1 for the second year in a row, having a lot of building still to do.
That said, this time different for Khan, and it’s not just because of the intense criticism he’s faced over the last six months.
It’s also because, in retaining Baalke and hiring Pederson, he wasn’t simply delegating to others and providing input as the process went on. In this case, Khan rolled his sleeves up, got involved and came to his conclusion that keeping his much-maligned GM was the right thing to do, and that going the extra mile to land Pederson to match with Baalke was what needed to happen.
Similarly, he’ll be on a plane Wednesday to Jacksonville to help Baalke and Pederson finalize which of the four candidates under consideration for the top pick the Jags are going to take atop Thursday’s first round. He’ll let those guys do their thing, of course. But he wants to see their process at work and know why they’re doing what they are—and once again see, with his own eyes, that things are still going where they have been the last few months, which, as Khan sees it, is in the right direction.
