5 Observations on Doug Pederson's First Jaguars Coaching Staff

The Jaguars finalized an important series of moves on Thursday, announcing a 22-coach staff for Doug Pederson to enter 2022 with.

The Jacksonville Jaguars will have a full sideline this fall, with some old faces returning and some new faces coming along to join head coach Doug Pederson's coaching staff.

The Jaguars announced Pederson's finalized staff on Thursday, which can be found in full here. 

With a staff full of experienced coaches, former Eagles and Pederson assistants and former NFL players, what do we make of Pederson's first staff with the Jaguars? Are there any trends, and if so what could they teach us about Pederson moving forward? We break it all down below.

Pederson's staff is full of more than just coaching experience, also featuring a number of former NFL players 

One does not need to be a former NFL player to be a good coach at the professional level, but having playing experience in the league has never been seen as a downside. After all, former players know not only what it is supposed to look like, but they can often relate to players on a deep level to their shared connection to the game.

Outside of Zach Orr, Tony Gilbert, Todd Washington, and Bernie Parmalee, the Jaguars didn't have many of those types last season. That has clearly changed under Pederson, however. After hiring a number of former players during his tenure with the Eagles, Pederson has done the same with the Jaguars, ultimately hiring 11 coaches who spent at least one season in the NFL. 

• Quarterbacks coach Mike McCoy: Spent 1995 on NFL practice squads

• Defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell: 11-year NFL veteran, played 159 games

• Special teams coordinator Heath Farwell: Eight-year NFL veteran, played 114 games

• Wide receivers coach Chris Jackson: Three-year NFL veteran, played three games

• Tight ends coach Richard Angulo: Six-year NFL veteran, played 27 games

• Running backs coach Bernie Parmalee: Nine-year NFL veteran, played 134 games

• Assistant offensive line coach Todd Washington: Eight-year NFL veteran, played 97 games

• Inside linebackers coach Tony Gilbert: Five-year NFL veteran, played 68 games

• Safeties coach Cody Grimm: Three-year NFL veteran, played 23 games.

• Passing game coordinator/ Cornerbacks coach Deshea Townsend: 13-year NFL veteran, 191 career games. 

Add in Doug Pederson's 10 years and 100 career games, and this staff comes out to have 77 years of playing experience and 916 career games played. That is some deep football experience and knowledge for a young roster to learn from.

Pederson didn't fall into the trap of only hiring former assistants

There is one notable familiar face on Pederson's staff in offensive coordinator Press Taylor, but otherwise it doesn't seem like Doug Pederson fell into the trap many though he would when it came to hiring assistants. While he has connections to various coaches throughout the staff (Caldwell, Bob Sutton, Bill Shuey, Rory Segrest), most of his hires are not coaches who were on his Eagles teams from 2016-2020. 

While Pederson was criticized often in Philadephia for not hiring from outside the building often enough, this wasn't a prevalent theme in this year's batch of assistant hires. Taylor is a name that will attract a lot of attention since he is a coordinator and because he was tied to Pederson's exit with the Eagles, but he is the only coach who is the level of a position coach or higher who worked with Pederson with the Eagles.

• Offensive coordinator Press Taylor: Spent 2016-2020 with Pederson as an offensive quality control coach, assistant quarterbacks coach, quarterbacks coach, and passing game coordinator.

• Assistant quarterbacks coach Andrew Breiner: Spent 2020 with Pederson as a passing game analyst 

• Offensive quality control coach Nick Williams: Spent the 2018-2020 seasons with Pederson as a coaching assistant. 

• Assistant special teams coach Luke Thompson: Spent the 2019-2020 seasons with Pederson as assistant special teams coach.

A few coaches who could potentially play big roles in free agency due to their connections

One big draw when it comes to hiring assistant coaches is the connections they can bring in free agency. Just last year we saw the Jaguars get several players due to their playing connections with Urban Meyer's hire with Marvin Jones, Jamal Agnew and Jihad Ward all coming due to the Jaguars hiring their former coaches. With this in mind, here are three coaches I think could play similar roles. 

• Wide receivers coach Chris Jackson just spent the last two years as the Bears' assistant wide receivers coach, where he spent every single day working alongside impending free agent and former Jaguars wide receiver Allen Robinson,

• Defensive line coach Brentson Buckner has coached the Cardinals defensive line for the last several years, putting him on the same side of the ball as Chandler Jones. And according to this 2020 story from NFL.com's Jim Trotter, Jones spent considerable time working with Buckner specifically in the last few seasons.

• Safeties coach Cody Grimm spent the last three years helping with Tampa's secondary and special teams, which puts him on a direct path with Jordan Whitehead, an impending free agent. Whitehead, a fourth-round pick by Tampa in 2018, started 44 regular season games and went through two playoff runs with Grimm as a coach.

Breaking down the coaches the Jaguars opted to retain 

One interesting aspect of every round of coaching staff hires whenever a new regime is in is how many coaches are retained. We saw Urban Meyer retain a couple of Doug Marrone's coaches in George Warhop, Tim Walton, Tony Gilbert, and Joe Dana, and we have now seen Pederson do the same with a number of Meyer assistants. So, which coaches are sticking and why?

• Inside linebackers coach Tony Gilbert not only survived his second staff firing (he was also on Marrone's staff in 2020), but he got a promotion to inside linebackers coach. Gilbert is incredibly respected within Jacksonville's locker room and is seen as a rising defensive coach whose name will continue to remain prevalent moving forward. 

• Running backs coach Bernie Parmalee is another respected coach who was well-liked by last year's roster. Parmalee is a quiet voice but he is experienced, trustworthy and has the ability to relate to his backs due to his playing career. One of the attempted scapegoats of the Urban Meyer era, Parmalee is a coach that it is easy for many to root for. 

• Assistant offensive line coach Tony Washington was around for all of the 2021 season and worked closely with an offensive line that is in flux going into the 2022 season. This is just a working assumption on my end, but I do think there is value in having a familiar voice when it comes to evaluating which players should return and who should play where. 

• Senior defensive assistant Bob Sutton spent three years on the same staff as Doug Pederson from 2013-2015. Sutton was Andy Reid's first hire at defensive coordinator with the Kansas City Chiefs, while Pederson was his offensive counterpart. Sutton is someone Pederson knows well, so it isn't surprising to see him return. 
• Assistant wide receivers coach Will Harriger and defensive quality control Patrick Reily coach will also return. Neither has ties to Pederson, though Harriger has spent time with Parmalee in the past and Reily is a former Nick Saban assistant.

Pederson's staff is smaller than Urban Meyers but came together much, much quicker

Urban Meyer had a few more coaches on the payroll than Pederson, but the 2021 season proved a team doesn't need an entire brigade of coaches to find success. And even with a slightly smaller class, there are more noticeable differences to how Pederson's coaching staff came together compared to Meyer's. The lack of college coaches with limited NFL experience is one difference, but the other and more prevalent one is simply the timeline. 

Pederson was hired on Feb. 3 and had his staff announced on Feb. 17, exactly two weeks later. By comparison, Meyer was hired on Jan. 14 and his staff was announced on Feb. 11, exactly four weeks later. There are likely a number of reasons why Meyer took two weeks longer than Pederson to finalize a staff, but it is clear that Pederson was able to make this a short and sweet process.