Trent Baalke Gets Fired
As far as billionare owners go, Shad Khan doesn’t seem that bad. He seems invested in keeping the team in Jacksonville and embracing the community. He doesn’t seem too meddlesome. His problem is he is absolutely the dumbest man alive when it comes to football decisions. Doug Pederson is arguably the only good hire he’s made during his tenure, and that only really worked out for a year before it went sour.
Trent Baalke was his most recent mistake. Baalke is the GM equivalent of Grima Wormtongue. Jags fans protested his hiring by collectively making their twitter profile pictures the clown emoji with the Khan mustache. Baalke, if you don’t remember, is the snake GM who poisoned 49ers owner Jed York against Jim Harbaugh and got him ousted. The 49ers would instantly crumble into dust for a few years before York realized his error, fired Baalke, and made good football decisions again. Baalke somehow wormed his way into Jacksonville and got promoted when the previous GM was let go. As things soured during the Doug Pederson era this year, it became widely anticipated that everyone would get let go at season’s end.
Baalke was not fired. Jags fans were furious. Well, as of two days ago, Baalke was finally let go in a surprise move. It turns out Baalke is such a well-known snake that every major candidate the Jags interviewed basically told Khan they don’t want to work with him. This culminated when Liam Coen, the Bucs OC, turned them down after looking like a top candidate, and turned around to get offered a massive deal to instead stay in Tampa. A day later Baalke is let go and as of this writing, shenanigans are taking place with Coen secretly flying back to Jacksonville for a second interview that might be in violation of his Tampa deal? Coen clearly put one demand on the table: I don’t want to work with that guy. Khan finally woke up and killed the snake.
So two weeks after they should have fired him, after losing out on two of the top coaching candidates, rejected by other quality candidates and about to lose on yet another, the Jags appear to have figured shit out. I don’t know if Liam Coen is the answer. Baker Mayfield has gotten two offensive coordinators a job now. Maybe it’s just Baker being good. Though Canales looks like he might have some juice.
We have to be wary of where Baalke ends up next.
The funny thing is that a different Bucs OC riding the coattails of a great Bucs QB, this time with much stronger ties to the Jags, also Baalked on Shad Kahn towards the beginning of Trent’s tenure: Bryon Leftwich.
Baalke would be a decent GM if he knew how to play well with others. The implosion of the Harbaugh 49ers was definitely Baalke’s doing and theyay very well have won a title or two had Harbaugh stayed.
really digging this clean art style, and the comic itself got a larf outta me. good jorb. go ‘ders! go bills!
if baalke is grima, who’s saruman?
ah man, I wish i’d thought to suggest a LOTR* theme week during the reg season.
*and Silmarillion? nah too esoteric… (it’s metal as heck though, if you’ve never read it. some people struggle with the first bits, which is written in a very Biblical begat-begat-begat style. if so, skip ahead. it’s not a unified narrative anyway, more a collection of bits. oh, seems I got a little waylaid here…)
What I’ve told anyone looking to get into The Silmarillion to do is listen to the audiobook narrated by Andy Serkis. Having his voice somehow just makes the whole thing a lot easier to go down if you’re not previously familiar with it.
Currently by the starlit mere of Cuivienen
Oh damn, Coen new head coach of the Jaguars. Looks like the clown smackdown worked.
Oh, I know where Balki Bartokomous is going! After Schoen’n'(D)Abel are fired next year, he’s gonna end up the GM of the New York Football Giants. It’s gonna be PANDA MOMENTUM! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy.
Let us do the Dance of Joy!
Don’t even joke about that. As Dave said, Baalke is like Grima Wormtongue and the both York of the 49ers and Khan of the Jags LOVED him and would fire coaches but not him.
He’d set your team back years with awful drafting and worse free agent signings.
Meanwhile, the same thing is happening in New Orleans and they doubled down just today saying they will not get rid of Osama bin Loomis. Thank God I’m also a Texans fan, because management just went full Roto-Rooter on the coaching roster today.
For real. I liked Slowik last year but this year he didn’t just plateau, he straight up cratered. He couldn’t adapt at ALL; you could see so many games that the Texans did well in the first half fall apart in the second half because of his inability to adapt, the Lions game sticks out clearly in my mind. I wish him the best, and hope he improves so he can come back from this, but DAMN am I glad that Cam got worked out of his depressive funk from his dad dying so he started taking a much more active hand in running the team. Most of the time you want an owner that stays hands off, but it really does inspire optimism to see one that steps in when needed to deal with an obvious growing problem before it gets too bad.
Imagine if they had kept Slowik for a third year and he didn’t improve; I don’t think we’d have managed to pull off even another 10-win season, and we would have started to waste CJ’s priceless formative years.
Amendment to this: it was all DeMeco. He took lead, he made the call, Cal and Nick backed him up on it. He likes Slowik as a friend, but he recognized Bobby was in over his head and made the call that was best for the team. I think DeMeco Ryans is going to be with Houston for a very long time now.
I…don’t know how to process a Texans team that actually makes the tough calls that benefit the team instead of letting people fester. Is this…hope?
As a Jags fan, I LOVE this comic !
The fan base detested Baalke and he way more than Doug was the reason that the team sucked the last year and half. Besides being a snake, his talent evaluation skill SUCKED. The only guys he really hit on in the draft were sure things that duh anyone would pick. He loves workout warriors and doesn’t watch tape.
Most fans will never forgive him when a few drafts ago we had the top pick and he picked Travon Walker over Aidan Hutchinson. Walker is OK but no way should have been the top pick. Meanwhile Hutchinson is awesome and a much better player. WHY didn’t Baalke draft Hutchinson — because he played for his nemesis Harbough at Michigan.
Firing Baalke was a great day. The Jaguars haven’t had a decent GM since Shack Harris left 15 years ago. Hopefully with Coen as HC and a good new GM who cleans out the front office there is hope again for the team.
As a Lions fan, I’m really happy to have Hutch as our hometown guy, and when he’s healthy he’s a stud. But yeah, it feels like a big stroke of luck that he even fell to us at #2. It felt just like Penei Sewell the year before, when the Bengals passed on him to draft Chase (which in hindsight wasn’t the wrong move for them, but wasn’t quite right either). Like, “Did he really just fall to us?” and then Brad Holmes pouncing on the no-brainer draft pick that was only available because someone else screwed up.
Anyway, I’m glad Shad Khan was finally able to listen to pretty much everybody and make the right choice.
If the Bucs’ next OC gets a head coaching gig, you should do a “Baker the Kingmaker” comic
Anybody have Gayle Benson’s email? There’s a comic I’d like to share with her.