The Jacksonville faithful have had to endure a lot of bad football over the years. Though the franchise found a great deal of success early in its existence, it has finished above .500 just once since 2007 and has won five or fewer games in 10 of those seasons.
But the Jaguars also are now in a position they’ve never been in before. They landed a generational talent in quarterback Trevor Lawrence, but his rookie year was hindered by the abhorrent leadership of coach Urban Meyer, whose tenure lasted just 13 games. Many expected the Jags to clean house after a disastrous season, but reports have surfaced that owner Shad Khan intends to keep general manager Trent Baalke in place.
That angered many Jags fans, who are fed up with the never-ending cycle of failure. They started the “#KhlownOut” movement on Twitter, where they changed their profile pictures to the clown emoji with a mustache that resembles Khan’s.
Now, according to the Associated Press’ Mark Long, the protest will leave the screens and head to the stadium for Sunday’s season finale against the Indianapolis Colts. Per Long, some of the fans who will be attending the game intend to wear clown costumes to make a statement to Khan about their displeasure with the direction the team is heading.
It’s unclear if the fan revolt is having an impact on Khan’s decision-making process regarding Baalke, who has a less-than-stellar reputation around the league. He was fired from the same role in San Francisco alongside first-year coach Chip Kelly in 2016 after gutting many components of the organization that brought it to a Super Bowl.
Many also feel that he’s tainted from his connection to Meyer, and considering he was on staff in 2020 and promoted from the interim general manager role this season, these fans want the team to go in a different direction.
The effort is certainly well organized, as you can tell by looking at the replies by any tweet from the official Jaguars account, and we’ll see what the clown turnout is as Jacksonville closes out a nightmarish 2021 campaign in front of the home crowd.
