The Jacksonville Jaguars entered the 2024 NFL season with high expectations, as set by 74-year-old owner Shad Khan.
The Jaguars have not lived up to those expectations, and in Week 11, they suffered one of their most embarrassing defeats yet.
The Detroit Lions thrashed the Jaguars 52-6 in a blowout that was over by halftime. Detroit scored on each of its four possessions and outgained the Jaguars by 475 yards during the contest. That is the largest disparity in an NFL game since 1979, per ProFootballTalk’s Michael David Smith.
As a result of that defeat, the Jaguars are heading into their bye week with a 2-9 record. That makes them the worst team in the NFL this season, a half-game worse than the New York Giants, Las Vegas Raiders and Cleveland Browns, who are also two-win teams competing for the ignominious honor. The Jags are in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft after Week 11.
Could that lead the Jaguars to part ways with Doug Pederson? It’s looking increasingly likely that the Super Bowl-winning coach won’t retain his post beyond the 2024 NFL season.
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Will the Jaguars fire Doug Pederson?
The Jaguars seem likely to move on from Doug Pederson soon. It’s just a matter of when that might happen.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported on Sunday, Nov. 17, that ‘change is likely coming’ for the Jaguars. The team is on bye in Week 12, so they could begin making changes during that off-week.
‘An ugly loss piled on top of everything that is going on in Jacksonville could spark the beginning of the end,’ Rapoport said on NFL GameDay. ‘As one source told me, ‘It is everyone’s fault. Everyone plays a part in it.”
Certainly, Jacksonville’s 52-6 defeat would be categorized as ‘ugly.’ So too was the team’s collapse at the end of the 2023 NFL season, which came despite them being in the driver’s seat for a playoff berth for most of the season. And this year, the Jaguars have the NFL’s worst record and have lost five of their last six games.
But with the losses piling up and the team becoming increasingly less competitive, the writing appears to be on the wall for Pederson. The veteran coach understands that, as he explained after the game when asked if he believed he had coached his final game with the Jaguars.
‘I can’t control that,’ Pederson replied. ‘Listen, I’ve been around this league a long time. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen obviously. But at the same time, I still have a job to do. And that’s to get ready for a good division opponent here in two weeks.’
Soon enough, we’ll see if Pederson is leading the Jaguars into that matchup against the Houston Texans.