1. Poor decisions at QB

While heat from the NFLPA is what ultimately led to Khan firing Coughlin, his decisions at the quarterback position are the biggest factors that held the team back. When he returned as an executive for the Jags, many were quick to praise his evaluation skills on the offensive side of the football, however, he could never figure out the most important position in the game during his second run in Duval.

His first mistake involving the quarterback position was taking in Dave Caldwell’s project, Blake Bortles, and not his own. It’s hard to say if he simply wanted to avoid friction in the front office or let Caldwell persuade him to stick with Bortles longer than they should’ve, but Coughlin should’ve done what a lot of executives do early in their tenures: draft his own quarterback early. Instead, the team is still paying for that mistake financially while Bortles isn’t even on the team.

In the process of keeping Bortles, he passed on Deshaun Watson, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, all MVP caliber players who could’ve elevated the Jags to new heights with the right offensive coordinator. Instead, he’ll now have to watch all or most of those quarterbacks lead their respective teams to the playoffs from home.

To make matters worse, Coughlin tried to patch up that mistake with Foles, who he made the highest-paid free-agent acquisition in team history. As we’re seeing now, that proved to not only hurt the Jags’ cap situation like Bortles’ contract did, but it appears the veteran is also not the answer. To put it simply, history has proven that free-agency isn’t where organizations find starting quarterbacks, and a veteran in the game like Coughlin definitely should’ve steered away from making such an avoidable mistake.