Jags hire former 49ers head athletic trainer Jeff Ferguson

The Jags continued to add names to their sports performance department Monday by adding an assistant connected to Trent Baalke.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have their coaching staff in place, however, they’ve continued to make other additions to other departments. On Monday, some changes were reported for their sports performance department as former San Francisco 49ers head athletic trainer Jeff Ferguson was named Director of Athletic Training.

Ferguson, who was last with the 49ers in January of 2019, spent 13 seasons with the team. While in San Francisco, he was promoted on several occasions, with his first being a move to their director of football operations and sports medicine role in 2011. In 2013, Ferguson became the 49ers’ vice president of football operations in the sports medicine department, and last served as their vice president of medical services/athletic trainer from 2016-18.

According to the Jags’ official site, Ferguson’s most recent role included “overseeing the team’s entire medical and nutritional needs,” which included “rehabilitation procedures, injury records, the training room, and daily athletic training duties.”

With the 49ers 2017 and 2018 seasons involving significant injuries where key players had to go to injured reserve (which doesn’t necessarily fall on the trainers), they fired Ferguson before the 2019 season. However, he quickly found his footing again by acquiring a job in the XFL as their vice president of player health and safety from 2019-20.

While the 49ers were fourth and third in the NFC West, respectively, during Ferguson’s last two seasons, it’s worth noting that he also was a part of the teams staff during their three consecutive NFC appearances from 2011-13. He’ll now join a performance department that new coach Urban Meyer has stressed the importance of last month.

When introducing the staff, Meyer discussed the time and effort he put into the sports performance department and how big of a priority keeping players healthy is to him.

“The one thing I’m very confident [in] is that I would imagine within a year or two, we’ll have the best sports performance team in the National Football League,” Meyer said. “As far as the last few years, we’ve had serious issues with injuries. I want to say 63 games were missed just on the defensive side of the ball because of injuries, where in 2017, there were only two. So keeping players healthy at their maximum performance is a high, high priority for [me].”

Per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, director of player health and performance, Scott Trulock, is also leaving the team. He had been with the team since 2014 and joined the team during Gus Bradley’s run as head coach.