After flaming out with the NY Giants in 2017, Ben McAdoo has finally landed an NFL coaching gig.
Well, it finally happened – Ben McAdoo is back in the NFL. The former lightning rod NY Giants head coach is going back to his roots as he takes over as quarterbacks coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Last time around, becoming the quarterbacks coach in Green Bay is what catapulted the young, promising coach into relevancy. By age 37, the longtime Packers assistant scored a big-time promotion when he headed to the NY Giants to take on the offensive coordinator position.
From there, we all know what happened. Benching Eli Manning for Geno Smith is something that will follow McAdoo everywhere he goes until he’s an old man, and rightfully so. The decision never made any sense, and it’s unlikely he would have been fired – even if the team had a terrible record – that season if he would have not disrespected the franchise legend so profoundly.
After taking several interviews over the past two offseasons, the Jaguars are taking a chance on McAdoo that makes a ton of sense from their perspective. Their fans won’t care about the Eli debacle, and they’re surely getting a high-level offensive coach to preside over one of their lower-level positions.
Despite what happened in December 2017, Eli had some of his – if not the – best years of his career under McAdoo. Jacksonville represents an interesting opportunity for him to rebrand himself as a hot commodity.
Still just 42-years-old, if McAdoo can either find a way to get Nick Foles back to playing high-level football or further develops Gardner Minshew, he could be back on the offensive coordinator radar by as soon as next season.
There were rumors recently that he had the inside track on the Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator job, although the team appeared to get cold feed which likely had to do with his reputation around the league.
He’ll have two different quarterbacks with potential to work with in Jacksonville, upping his chances for success. We’ll see how this one works out.