Shad Khan has been on the firing blocks since cutting Doug Pederson as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars earlier this week after finishing the 2024 season 4-13. Fans bought into the idea that it was the correct decision, but the narrative changed as he kept general manager Trent Baalke .
The Baalke and Pederson duo delivered back-to-back winning seasons, but the Jaguars only qualified for the playoffs in Pederson's first year in charge in 2023. Due to the constant mediocrity, Khan pulled the plug on Pederson who won a Super Bowl at Philadelphia Eagles as Andy Reid's right-hand man but Baalke remained safe for the time being.
This ticked off ESPN's veteran analyst Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo. According to him, Khan placed his bets on the wrong guy. Pederson deserved his end, but Baalke should have followed him through the door as well.
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He fires Pederson and keeps the GM [Trent Baalke] and his statement says, well I understand we will lose some head coaching candidates because I kept the GM… And he got his kid [Tony Khan] who is the head of the statistical data. How can you say anything about Jacksonville when you got the kid sitting in the front office? What's he ever done in football?
Russo went as far as branding him the worst owner in the NFL, a position which the network often awards to the Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
We call owners all the time. Woody [Johnson] is awful, [Jimmy] Haslam is awful… Jerry [Jones]—how many times have we killed Jerry here? There's nobody worse than [Shad] Khan. Go look at his record at Jaguars, it's pathetic.
Chris Russo added
