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Gus Bradley On Hot Seat, Jacksonville Jaguars’ Owner Comments On Potential Coaching Change

By Bryan Zarpentine
Published on: 01:27 PST, Oct 28, 2016

Jacksonville Jaguars’ head coach Gus Bradley is on the hot seat. Following Thursday’s 36-22 defeat at the hands of the Tennessee Titans, a game that the Jaguars trailed 27-0 at halftime, there’s little doubt that Bradley is feeling immense amounts of heat. Bradley knows his seat is hot but believes that he will have a fair chance to get things turned around, despite his 14-41 record as head coach of the Jaguars.

NFL.com, among other sources, reports that Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan said following Thursday’s loss that Bradley has not coached his last game. However, there’s no denying that the owner is disappointed at the team’s performance.

“Actions speak louder than words,” Khan said after Thursday’s loss. “Very little for me to say.”

Gus Bradley being on the hot seat is difficult to deny, despite the owner saying that a coaching change is not imminent. However, that hasn’t stopped Bradley from being in denial. After Thursday’s game, Bradley told USA Today and other media outlets that he was not worried about his job.

“I worry about this team and why did we perform like that in the first half and figuring out, ‘OK, how can we get it right?'” Bradley commented.

Jacksonville Jaguars’ head coach Gus Bradley. [Image by Rob Foldy/Getty Images]

Of course, even Bradley can’t deny how terrible the Jaguars were on Thursday, particularly in the first half, when the Titans compiled 354 yards of total offense, while the Jaguars managed just 60 yards.

“I’m not making any excuses,” Bradley said. “It was bad.”

Bradley’s status on the hot seat is strongly linked to the poor play of quarterback Blake Bortles, who has not made the kind of progress in his third NFL season that Bradley and the Jaguars were hoping he’d be able to make. Perhaps equally concerning for Jacksonville is that Bortles told ESPN after the game that he doesn’t have the answers for why he and the team are struggling.

“It’s hard for me to sit up here and answer this for you guys,” Bortles said after Thursday’s loss. “You guys know everything I’m going to say, and I don’t know. I tell you the same stuff every week. It’s difficult.”

Bortles reiterated after Thursday’s game, which drops the Jaguars to 2-5 on the season, that confidence in himself isn’t the problem.

“Like I said earlier in the week or last week, you know, confidence isn’t an issue. I believe in myself and this team 100 percent,” the quarterback said. “It’s just a broken record. It’s a lack of execution. It’s mistakes. It’s the same stuff every week.”

Blake Bortles throws a pass against the Tennessee Titans. [Image by Andy Lyons/Getty Images]

Bradley, like almost every other coach in the NFL, has his success tied to the success of his quarterback, and as long as Bortles continues to struggle, the Jaguars are going to struggle to win games and Gus Bradley is going remain on the hot seat.

“He is a pretty confident man,” Bradley said about Bortles Thursday night. “I know he has belief in his capabilities, just like we all do on our team. I think, ‘How does this happen? Why is this happening to us? What are we doing wrong?’ It’s those types of questions that may pop up and this is what we’ve got to find the answers to.”

If it’s any consolation for Bradley and Bortles, they are not the only ones who are searching for answers that don’t appear to exist. Wide receiver Allen Hurns confirmed to ESPN that he doesn’t have any answers for Jacksonville’s problems either.

“Coming into this year nobody saw this coming,” Hurns said. “We thought we would be a high-powered offense and no one would be able to stop us, and the most frustrating thing is we don’t know what’s going on. There’s no answers for us.”

Bradley and the Jaguars appear to have the same issues on the defensive side of the ball, at least according to Malik Jackson, who signed with Jacksonville during the offseason after winning a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos last season.

“We have the players,” Jackson said. “We have the scheme. We put in the work on and off the field. I see these guys go out on Wednesday through Saturday and bust their ass. You can’t put a finger on this. It’s not like it’s one guy. That’s the hard part because you don’t know what it is. I’m trying to figure it out my damn self.”

Gus Bradley remains on the hot seat at the moment, but it should be obvious to everyone that he needs to be fired, despite what Khan said after Thursday’s loss. It’s one thing for the players to be confused about the answers, but for a head coach like Bradley to be so far from finding a solution means that he’s simply not the right person for the job.

At this point, it’s almost impossible to envision Bradley being able to lead the Jaguars out of the disastrous situation he’s built in Jacksonville. He’s been given more than a fair chance to get the franchise on track, and Khan has cut him more than enough slack.

Bradley being fired seems to be the only answer the Jaguars have at the moment. They just don’t seem willing to see it and accept it, which in the meantime, leaves Gus Bradley dangling on the hot seat.

[Featured Image via Sam Greenwood/Getty Images]

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