As the late, great Michael Corleone once said, “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.” While some with the Bucs might have taken last week’s ghosting from Liam Coen personally, Coen views it differently.
“At the end of the day, it came down to business,” Coen told Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times regarding Coen’s clandestine exit. “It did. It came down to family and business and a dream that was right in front of you. Not maybe down the road. How do you say no to that? . . .
“It started to become more clear with every hour that this was an opportunity that you just can’t pass up, for so many different reasons. And you ultimately wanna do truly what’s best for you and your family. And that’s what this came down to.”
Coen claimed to feel no extra pressure to stay put from the unenforceable side deal that he wouldn’t interview for the job in Jacksonville after getting a contract that would have made him the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the NFL.
“No, not really,” he said. “None at all.”
Still, he secretly left Tampa for Jacksonville last week, after verbally agreeing to the contract to stay with the Buccaneers. If his secret exit wasn’t prompted by concerns that the Bucs wouldn’t react well to a perceived reneging on the handshake understanding, then maybe it traces to the Jaguars’ effort to satisfy the Rooney Rule by interviewing Patrick Graham in person before it became publicly known that Coen was the guy.
Previously, Coen withdrew his name from consideration from the supposed dream come true in Duval. After the Jaguars parted ways with G.M. Trent Baalke, everything changes. During Coen’s introductory press conference, he was asked whether the departure of Baalke changed Coen’s mind.
“This was completely about an opportunity to work for an owner and a group of people with a group of players that needed some help,” Coen said. “And that’s what coaching is, right? That’s what coaching is all about is trying to go help people and be around people. So no that was not — that was not the factor.”
It might not have been “the” factor. Not when he’s making (we’ve heard) $12 million a year to become a first-time NFL head coach. But the basic timeline suggests that it was “a” factor.
Regardless, what’s done is done. And not much was said yesterday about the specifics. As owner Shad Khan said during the press conference, “He’s our guy and we got him. Simple as that.”
It hardly seemed simple as it was happening. The simple fact is that, with the Jaguars intent on moving forward, the complications no longer matter.
