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Jaguars fans aren’t happy with the news that the latest reboot of the team won’t include giving right-place-right-time G.M. Trent Baalke the boot. For Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Colts, some of them plan to show their discontent with their attire.
Via Mark Long of the Associated Press, some fans plan to wear clown costumes to the game. It’s an extension of the proliferation of a social-media effort consisting of clowns with owner Shad Khan’s handlebar mustache and the heavy use of clown emojis in response to posts from the team.
Fan hope to engineer the firing of Baalke, who reportedly will survive the hiring of a new coach.
Baalke is just a symptom of the deeper problem. Through a decade of ownership, Khan has made one mistake after another. He’s the common link, the wildly successful captain of industry who believes football is easier than it is, and who lacks the knowledge (including the knowledge of what he doesn’t know) needed to make good decisions about the identity of his football decision-makers.
The NFL is set up for all teams to cluster around .500. Apart from the 2017 season, which nearly resulted in a Super Bowl berth, the Jaguars have been bad. Very bad. This year, they’re 2-14 bad — one year after being 1-15 bad.
That’s too bad for Jaguars fans. Owners can’t be fired; they’re stuck with Khan. Just like every fan base of every other dysfunctional team is stuck with the ultimate source of the dysfunction.
Will Sunday’s clown-out make a difference? We’ll see. Regardless, keeping Baalke will make it harder to hire the best possible coach, because multiple candidates won’t interview for the job if they know on the way in that the last man standing from the last two failed regimes has somehow climbed to the top of the mountain.
But even without Baalke, will Khan be able to hire the best of the best? Absent a major financial investment or significant power over the football operations, candidates with options may opt to work elsewhere.
