NFL Mailbag: How did Jaguars GM Trent Baalke survive Urban Meyer debacle?
Shorter mailbag this week—we needed to modify the schedule to pay tribute to John Madden midweek—however I needed to ensure I received to your questions this week. Listed here are just a few …
From Señor Fuentes (@_SenorFuentes): Trent Baalke. Is he actually secure or do you assume he’s solely going to be part of the interview course of?
From Richard Ito (@rich_ito): There appears to be extra common disdain over the Jags maintaining Baalke than there even was for when it appeared like they may maintain Urban. Cannot discover any native or nationwide media defending it. What does Shad Khan know that nobody else does?
Fellas, I feel it’s first essential to see why Baalke was retained—and the way he wound up with the job within the first place. He was employed by former GM Dave Caldwell in early 2020 to switch director of participant personnel Chris Polian, and over the course of that calendar yr cultivated a superb relationship with the Khan household, sufficient to the place Shad and Tony Khan warmed to the thought of elevating him completely after dismissing Caldwell and making him the interim GM. However a part of that, in fact, would trip on the decision on the coach.
That decision wound up being to rent Urban Meyer, and because the Jags courted Meyer, Meyer’s focus in negotiations was on getting guarantees on facility upgrades, help workers hires, and funds for his teaching workers. So, as I perceive it, he was prepared to provide on the Khans’ need to retain Baalke as GM.
And since? Effectively, it seems that Baalke successfully distanced himself from the mess that was created by means of Meyer’s 11-month stint, to the purpose the place the Khans felt prefer it wasn’t honest to fireside Baalke for Meyer’s transgressions. In order that—the proprietor feeling that the GM doesn’t have blood on his palms within the wake of the implosion of this fall—appears to be the explanation why the Jaguars plan to maintain Baalke in cost.
On its floor, possibly that’s high quality.
The issue is whenever you take a look at the larger image, it follows a sample. In San Francisco, when a Tremendous Bowl workforce crumbled below an avalanche of organizational in-fighting, Jim Harbaugh was ushered out the door. Baalke was the final man standing. When Baalke’s hand-picked successor, Jim Tomsula, fell flat on his face in changing Harbaugh in 2015, amid a lot hypothesis that Tomsula had quietly aligned with Baalke when issues went south with Harbaugh, an identical outcome adopted. Tomsula was fired. Baalke remained.
And, in fact, now twice in as a few years in Jacksonville, Shad Khan has pressed the eject button on his soccer operation—with Baalke, once more, the one man being held over.
That’s why there are coaches who would’ve thought of the Jaguars who in all probability gained’t now. In fact, that doesn’t imply Jacksonville can’t get it proper—it’s one in every of 32, the workforce has Trevor Lawrence to entice candidates, and there are succesful folks on the market for the workforce to contemplate. However, to me, the important thing query is why Baalke was seen as such an indispensable a part of the workforce’s future that it was prepared to chop down, in a big manner, its pool of teaching candidates to maintain him. And possibly the final 10 years would inform you on that.
Now, as to Señor’s query, I might see this going one other manner, and we are able to name that the 2013 Chiefs state of affairs. That yr, Kansas Metropolis fired Romeo Crennel, and made the choice to maintain Scott Pioli as GM. Pioli led the workforce’s teaching search, and when it turned clear that Andy Reid was the goal, the dynamic for the Chiefs modified. Reid needed to deliver his previous pal John Dorsey with him if he was going to select Okay.C. over Arizona. Pioli knew it, and so Pioli wound up stepping aspect to facilitate the Reid rent.
Possibly one thing like that occurs. In any other case, Baalke’s your GM, and also you’re going to have to seek out somebody prepared to pair with him.
From braddougan_1987 (@braddougan87): They had been gamers twice for Deshaun Watson will the Carolina Panthers pursue him but once more? Will the Panthers draft a QB within the first spherical?
Brad, yeah, I feel the Panthers will likely be within the combine for Watson, and particularly so if Watson’s authorized scenario good points some readability within the coming months. My perception is Carolina would’ve gone the gap final yr—and past the baseline of three first-round picks—to land him, a minimum of earlier than the lawsuits had been filed (and the Panthers confirmed curiosity after that too).
Matt Rhule will very clearly have loads personally on the road going into 2022. He has a protection that’s able to roar. He has offensive ability gamers. He’s received room so as to add some offensive linemen (which might be a mandatory step). What’s left to do is to seek out what’s undermined him this yr, and that’s stability at quarterback. Accordingly, proprietor David Tepper has not been shy with folks within the constructing about eager to discover a famous person on the place—which means that any thought that Rhule won’t be as free to go nuts and dump belongings to land the suitable triggerman this offseason can in all probability be dismissed.
Now, would Watson go there? That’s in all probability the larger query.
From Greg (@panther1gb89): Is Matt Rhule secure?
Greg, I feel he makes it to 2022, however there’ll actually be strain on him to ship on the groundbreaking seven-year deal Tepper gave him two years in the past. And I do assume the progress the workforce has made in assembling what ought to grow to be a High 5 protection—with younger constructing blocks Derrick Brown, Jeremy Chinn and Jaycee Horn added to Ron Rivera holdovers Brian Burns and Shaq Thompson forming a powerful core—is sufficient to give the proprietor justifiable optimism {that a} related transformation might occur on offense.
That makes three looming conditions important to Rhule’s future. Two are comparatively apparent. One is the aforementioned seek for the following quarterback. The opposite will likely be discovering the workforce’s subsequent offensive coordinator. However I feel fixing the offensive line is true there with the opposite two.
(Full disclosure, I picked the Panthers to make the playoffs earlier than the season, and Rhule to be the NFL’s coach of the yr. I used to be fallacious twice. However I do assume, if they’ll get these three issues proper—and that’s not a small ask, to be clear—then these kinds of issues can occur for the Panthers in 2022.)
From Patrick Sullivan (@psullivan4): How a lot has Urban Meyer poisoned the nicely for faculty coaches as candidates for NFL jobs? David Shaw would make a fantastic professional coach. In contrast to Urban, he was an assistant in NFL. Ought to that be the factors?
Patrick, as a result of the NFL is reactionary, there’s little query that Meyer’s failure goes to depart a mark that school coaches must put on for some time, by means of no fault of their very own. However what’s extra fascinating to me is whether or not the concept that school coaches don’t work within the NFL is rooted in actuality.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter posted this list Meyer was fired.
So … Let’s simply throw Pete Carroll in there, since he was coming from USC, and make the timeframe 2010–21—a 12-year interval. Which means we’re taking a look at Carroll, Jim Harbaugh, Doug Marrone, Chip Kelly, Invoice O’Brien, Kliff Kingsbury, Rhule and Meyer. Now, the details …
• Carroll gained a Tremendous Bowl. Each Carroll and Harbaugh received to Tremendous Bowls. Carroll, Harbaugh and Marrone all made it to the convention title spherical. So of the eight names there, three received to the NFL’s closing 4—and although Marrone didn’t make it along with his first NFL workforce, the Payments, he received Buffalo to 9–7, the workforce’s first profitable season in a decade, in his second (and closing) season there.
• Six of the eight coaches (these three, plus Kelly, O’Brien and Kingsbury) listed received groups to the playoffs. Kelly gained 10 video games in every of his first two years in Philly. Kingsbury’s ground-up rebuild has Arizona within the playoffs in Yr 3. And O’Brien made the playoffs 4 instances in six-plus seasons in Houston, and superior within the playoffs in two of these years.
My query, then, is that this: Is that hiring monitor document essentially worse than the monitor document groups have hiring different groups’ coordinators, or giving skilled NFL head coaches second possibilities? Now, I’m positively not saying that hiring a university coach is a slam dunk. There’s no query it’s a projection—you’re hiring a man right into a job that has a lot totally different dynamics than what he’s been doing. However isn’t that the case with coordinators too?
I don’t know. It simply appears to me that it’s overly simplistic for anybody to say that school coaches merely can’t make it work within the NFL. But when your argument is that some NFL expertise issues, then I can positively purchase that. Of the eight guys we listed, solely Kelly and Meyer got here in with out having earlier expertise working within the league.
From Ray Moore (@RAYbeingRAY): Playing cards are in playoffs. But when we lose out after which lose in wildcard spherical, does Kliff come again?
I feel so, Ray. However I do assume it’s good to check out the massive image right here, since Kingsbury got here into the season below numerous scrutiny.
Kingsbury inherited a damaged roster, one which had gotten previous and poor in Bruce Arians’s later years in Arizona, then collapsed throughout Steve Wilks’ single season. Kingsbury has, clearly, performed a giant half in constructing the highway again. He additionally received the franchise out from beneath a younger quarterback who’d wind up washing out of the league, Josh Rosen, and developed a man few groups would’ve taken first total, right into a star. In consequence, the Playing cards have steadily improved and are within the playoffs this yr for the primary time since 2015.
That’s the constructive. The unfavourable is that, for the third straight yr, his workforce appears to be fading down the stretch, and age in some key spots on the roster makes it honest to ask if what the workforce has finished this season is sustainable.
To me, laying all that out, the constructive far outweighs the unfavourable, and I feel Kingsbury’s earned himself a fourth yr.
From ryan (@ryanm008): If McDaniels takes a head teaching job is it affordable to count on Belichick to usher in a younger OC who has a brand new system that matches Mac higher. The system they run now was constructed within the 90s assume it’s time for an improve.
Ryan, I feel you’re fallacious—the system the Patriots are implementing and the personnel they’re deploying to execute it, as I see it, is precisely what you need in case you’re bringing alongside a younger quarterback. New England has, for essentially the most half, saved itself out of constant long-yardage conditions and from taking part in from behind, and that’s made issues infinitely simpler on Jones, giving him a greater atmosphere to be taught in.
The truth is, it’s simple to look, and work out that the distinction the final two weeks for Jones has been taking part in from behind and in much less advantageous down-and-distance conditions.
So I don’t agree along with your premise. However in case you’re in search of the following Patriots offensive coordinator, there are two guys I feel you have to eyeball. One is Alabama offensive coordinator Invoice O’Brien, who referred to as performs in New England from 2009–11. The opposite is tight ends coach Nick Caley, a really well-regarded younger coach whose promotion would permit Invoice Belichick to observe his regular fill-from-within sample of hiring into such positions.
From Jason Gruchala (@curseofthegooch): Since “Roll The Cube” Dan Campbell took over offensive play calling the Lions and Goff have vastly improved, what ought to the expectations be for 2022?
Jason, when Campbell made the decision to take over play-calling, the intention was for it to be a short lived repair for the remainder of 2022. However over time, he’s gotten extra snug with it, with tight ends coach Ben Johnson taking over extra coordinator-like duties, and so now I feel a pair issues are on the desk. They may follow the present setup. Or they might make Johnson the coordinator and have him work with Campbell’s enter. Or they might look outdoors the group (which isn’t as doubtless because it was earlier than).
One factor I’d say is that my guess is present coordinator Anthony Lynn will likely be elsewhere subsequent yr.
From Kerim Asur (@KerimAsur): In what manner do you see Washington addressing the QB scenario this offseason? As a vacation spot for veteran QB trades, we’re by no means talked about however with [Ron] Rivera being revered and a superb roster with a superb o-line and [Terry] McLaurin would the most effective QBs think about us?
Kerim, I feel it made sense that somebody will likely be. There are the explanations you talked about, and it’s an opportunity to play in a giant marketplace for a historic franchise. Additionally, Washington ought to have capital to dangle in a commerce, provided that their slotted first-rounder now sits at ninth within the draft order.
I feel they’ll examine Watson and Wilson. Failing that, somebody like Jimmy Garoppolo or Baker Mayfield might finally be in play. And the place they’re choosing, it’s attainable somebody like Kenny Pickett might wind up being engaging.
I’d agree along with your evaluation total, although, that extra folks ought to be mentioning Washington as a possible touchdown spot for a quarterback.
Extra NFL Protection:
• GamePlan: The Future NFL Common Managers Listing
• MAQB: How Many Teaching Jobs Will Open Earlier than the Season Ends?
• MMQB: How the Patriots Push the Payments to Enhance
