The Jacksonville Jaguars only fired Jack Del Rio on Tuesday, but the search for a new head coach is already on in earnest. According to our Jaguars blog Big Cat Country, the team will be looking for a pretty big splash at head coach, hopefully a coach with Super Bowl experience. These comments via former head coach Wayne Weaver.
"We'll have a list of people of people we think can be real successful here. It'll be a list of people that have high profile, that have had great success, that's had one of those rings. There will be others that are young coaches that have had a great deal of success and we think they are ready to break through the ceiling."
But the big issue that they point out with that plan is that Gene Smith will continue to have complete control over football operations, and that will turn off some head coaches with super bowl experience that would want to really put their stamp on a franchise, not just coach there.
That could be an issue for a lot of potential head coaches and could limit the pool of candidates that would have an interest in the position. Coaches like Bill Cowher or Tony Dungy are highly unlikely to accept a job that limits their abilities to shape the roster. If those coaches decide to return to coaching it would likely be with the demand that they receive the same treatment that Pete Carroll received from Seattle when he became the head coach and executive VP of football operations, essentially putting him in charge of every move the Seahawks make.