Jaguars Trolled by NFL Fans for Baalke Firing amid Failure to Land Top HC Candidates

Posted by author January 22, 2025 NFL

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The Jacksonville Jaguars are still in the market for a new head coach after potential candidates Ben Johnson (Chicago Bears), Mike Vrabel (New England Patriots) and Aaron Glenn (New York Jets) all went elsewhere.

Now they are in the market for a new general manager as well.

Shortly after ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the Jets are hiring Glenn on Tuesday, he also reported the Jacksonville Jaguars decided to fire Trent Baalke.

The news led to plenty of reaction on social media:

Field Yates @FieldYates

The timing on this is of course bizarre, but retaining Trent Baalke after the season had drawn no shortage of skepticism around the NFL.
The Jaguars now need a new coach and GM. https://t.co/HLIIZIKEO5

Benjamin Solak @BenjaminSolak

NOW THAT WEVE MISSED OUT ON THE GOOD HC CANDIDATES WERE MOVING ON FROM OUR GM WHO WAS RUNNING THE SEARCH COME ON

ProFootballTalk @ProFootballTalk

Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things @BarstoolBigCat.

Cameron Wolfe @CameronWolfe

Big move out of Jacksonville.
There’s been plenty talk around the NFL on impact of Trent Baalke’s presence for head coach candidates in Jags ongoing search. Now, Jags start anew at HC and GM. https://t.co/cbppL5d2fy

Albert Breer @AlbertBreer

Better late than never, but the reality is that this was mishandled from the start. My belief is Jaguars owner Shad Khan needed the help from Baalke on the coaching search. And through the process, I know he’d shown flexibility to move on from Baalke to land the right coach. https://t.co/TdudprkkfB

Joe Altomare @joealtomare16

It’s almost as if nobody wants to work with Baalke and your franchise is suffering immensely because of it pic.twitter.com/A5xPiuhnnp

Ari Meirov @MySportsUpdate

There might not be a bigger fumble this cycle than how the #Jaguars handled this. Top coaching candidates were never going to Jacksonville with Trent Baalke still in place. Now, after all the top names have turned them down, the team (owner) finally realizes it. What a mess. https://t.co/7gIzAfDC4A

JP Acosta @acosta32_jp

Waiting until Ben Johnson and Liam Coen turn you down to fire Baalke is so Jaguars https://t.co/Omnx5GC6G4

Earlier this month, Jaguars owner Shad Khan released a statement saying the team fired head coach Doug Pederson but decided to keep Baalke to help lead the search for a new head coach.

Alas, the team still does not have a head coach after many of the prominent candidates went elsewhere. It is easy to speculate with Wednesday’s move that Khan and the front office are not happy with the way the search is progressing and decided to move on from the general manager as well.

Khan released a statement expressing his appreciation for Baalke and explaining that interim G.M. Ethan Waugh will now help with the search for a new coach:

Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter

Statement from Jaguars owner Shad Khan:
“Following several discussions with Trent Baalke this week, we both arrived at the conclusion that it is in our mutual best interests to respectfully separate, effective immediately. Trent leaves us with my deepest appreciation for his… https://t.co/JpeEaPf16J

Jacksonville hired Baalke ahead of the 2020 season as its director of player personnel and then promoted him to interim general manager during that campaign following the firing of Dave Caldwell. Baalke remained as the full-time general manager moving forward starting with the 2021 season.

The Jaguars made the playoffs just once during the last five seasons with him on the staff and are coming off a 4-13 record in 2024.

Baalke’s time as the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers from 2011-16 was far more successful, as the NFC West team went to three straight NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl from the 2011 campaign through the 2013 one.

However, his relationship with former 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh was widely dissected and not believed to be a great one. San Francisco eventually fired the G.M. after the 2016 season.

Now Jacksonville has as well.