As his last season as owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars comes to an end, Wayne Weaver wonders whether he might have a Vince Lombardi Trophy if he had just stuck with his original coach.
Weaver told John Oehser of Jaguars.com that he thinks Tom Coughlin was the right coach for the franchise, and he wishes he had kept Coughlin as the team’s coach, rather than firing him after the 2002 season.
“If hindsight you could change, I’ll be honest with you: I probably would have never changed Coughlin,” Weaver said. “I would have tried to have Tom take a step back and just be the coach. I thought about it, but I didn’t think Tom would do it. I thought Tom’s pride would never allow him to take a step back and me take the general manager’s position and all power and say, ‘Go coach the football team.’ He did that in New York, but I thought it would hurt his pride too much.”
Coughlin ended up winning a Super Bowl as coach of the Giants, and Weaver says it upsets him that he wasn’t able to bring a title to Jacksonville.
“I’m proud overall of what we accomplished here. I’m disappointed, because I do think you can win (a Super Bowl) in this league a lot sooner than 18 years and we didn’t do it,” Weaver said. “I have to be honest with myself. We didn’t get it done.”
Asked what advice he’s given to the man who bought the team from him, Shahid Khan, Weaver said, “What you have to do is draft well and get the right coach.”