JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - People in our business will sit here on this Wednesday and say I told you it was going to be Mike Mularkey. Let me be the first to say - I didn't tell you so.
I'm actually a bit surprised at the move from some of the information I had gathered during the coaching search. I'm not alone. The Jaguars new owner Shad Khan and general manager Gene Smith did a nice job of keeping things quiet so nobody really knew what was happening.
For some fans, this move doesn't make sense but just like any hire there's a lot of logic to it. We can begin with the obvious and that's the fact that Mularkey's son, Patrick, is on Smith's scouting staff. If you keep connecting the dots then you know that Mularkey was a finalist when Jack Del Rio got the gig in 2003 so someone in that building liked him eight years ago for the job.
Mularkey has head coaching experience which is something the other candidates - the ones we knew about -- did not have. Mel Tucker did have a five game audition. Sure, Mularkey only had 14 wins in a couple of years in Buffalo but hey its Buffalo. The last time the Bills had a winning season, Mike Mularkey was the head coach.
Most recently, Mularkey worked with a young quarterback named Matt Ryan and helped groom him into one of the NFL's upper echelon qb's. You can criticize the playoff showings, including an embarrassing loss on Sunday against the Giants, but the sample is bigger than that.
With Mularkey as the offensive coordinator, the Falcons had twice as many wins as losses even if the post season wasn't a success.
The bottom line is Mularkey is a qualified guy and the most important thing now for the Jags is to give him and Blaine Gabbert some weapons on offense. The fans wanted an offensive minded guy and they got it. Now, everyone wants some playmakers and Gene Smith will have to deliver them.
