JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jaguars have hired former Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden as their offensive coordinator, the team announced Wednesday.
The Redskins fired Gruden in October after an 0-5 start in his sixth season. He led the Redskins to a 35-49-1 record that included an NFC East title and playoff appearance in 2015. Gruden was the offensive coordinator with Cincinnati for three seasons before being named the Redskins' head coach.
"We were trying to find someone who's best for this staff, who's best for what you want to run, then you're looking for what person's best for your players - who's going to relate to the players, who's going to be able to communicate with them," Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said. "At the end of the day, we just felt that Jay was the best fit for us."
Marrone also interviewed former NFL head coaches Ben McAdoo and Scott Linehan for the offensive coordinator position.
Gruden's offenses with the Bengals ranked in the middle third of the league in yards per game, rushing, passing and scoring in 2011 and 2012, but ranked in the top 10 in yards per game, passing and scoring in 2013. The Bengals had winning records all three seasons, and quarterback Andy Dalton, the team's second-round pick in 2011, had one of his best seasons in 2013, with 33 touchdown passes and 4,293 yards, both of which are career highs.
Gruden's offensive coordinator during his first three seasons in Washington was Sean McVay, who parlayed that job into becoming the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams in 2017.
Gruden, 52, will be the third offensive coordinator Marrone has hired in his four seasons with the Jaguars. He retained Nathaniel Hackett from the 2016 staff but fired him midway through the 2018 season and hired John DeFilippo in January 2019. The Jaguars and DeFilippo announced earlier this month that they had mutually agreed to part ways.
Gruden's top priority will be figuring out the quarterback situation in Jacksonville. The team signed Nick Foles last March to a four-year, $88 million contract that included a franchise-record $50.125 million guaranteed, but Foles suffered a broken collarbone just 11 snaps into the 2019 season opener. Rookie Gardner Minshew, a sixth-round pick, took over and played well enough to get the Jaguars to 4-5 before Foles was able to return.
However, Foles and the offense struggled, and Marrone benched Foles for Minshew just two and a half games after Foles' return.
Neither Marrone nor general manager Dave Caldwell -- both of whom were retained by owner Shad Khan despite winning only 11 games combined the past two seasons -- would commit to either player as the starter heading into the 2020 season.