Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone and his staff will be reporting back to TIAA Bank Field next week for staff evaluations and some fans are expecting a few changes. It’s possible he’ll also be looking to fill his vacant quarterbacks coach job, which became available after Scott Milanovich took a head coaching job in the Canadian Football League with the Edmonton Eskimos.
With a young Gardner Minshew II set to potentially start in 2020, Marrone will need to hire someone at the position who will be hands on and someone who has the ability to breakthrough to a young signal-caller who is still finding himself.
Here are three coaches who we believe make sense for the opening:
Mike Shula – Giants offensive coordinator/ QB coach
The son of the legendary Don Shula has been coaching for nearly 31 years, making various NFL stops throughout his journey. For those who can recall, one of those stops was in Jacksonville during the Jack Del Rio era (2007–2010). However, it appears he might be available for work as the coach that hired him, Pat Shurmur, was fired after the 2019 season.
Shula is a coach who has worked with several young signal-callers within the last decade with Daniel Jones being the latest. He also spent an extensive amount of time coaching Cam Newton from his rookie season (2011) all the way to 2017. Simply put, that would make him a perfect coach to work with Gardner Minshew II.
Jon Kitna – Dallas Cowboys QB coach
Like Shula, Jon Kitna is still technically on a staff despite head coach Jason Garrett being fired. However, per CBS Sports, he has a good chance to remain on the staff with Mike McCarthy taking over but it’s not set in stone so we’re rolling with it.
While Kitna has just one year of experience as an NFL coach (2019), he did a good job coaching up Dak Prescott throughout the span. In fact, the quarterback will be getting a nice paycheck in the near future for his play.
Additionally, Kitna spent over 10 years in the league and started in over 120 games during his time as an active player. That said, he could offer a wealth of knowledge to Minshew and/or Nick Foles.
Mike Groh – Former Eagles offensive coordinator
Mike Groh is a coach who spent a little time with Jags coordinator John DeFilippo while in Philly as both were assistance under Doug Pederson. At the time Groh was the team’s receivers coach while DeFilippo coached the quarterbacks. However, DeFilippo eventually left for an offensive coordinator job in Minnesota while Groh worked his way up to the Eagles offensive coordinator spot (2018-19). Unfortunately, that stint was short-lived as he was fired today.
It wouldn’t be shocking to see DeFilippo reach out to Groh in the near future to come in and be one of his assistants. The only negative about bringing him in is the fact that he has limited work as a quarterbacks coach. In fact, he’s only been a quarterbacks coach once and that was in Louisville in 2010.
Still, his work as a coordinator with the Eagles and passing game coordinator with the Los Angeles Rams (2016) should make him more than qualified, especially when considering how much time he spent coaching Carson Wentz.