After a very short tenure with the Jaguars, senior vice president of football operations and strategy Karim Kassam is out of a job. Jacksonville hired Kassam in February as part of the regime change that brought in general manager Trent Baalke and head coach Urban Meyer.
Tony Khan, the Jags’ chief football strategy officer and son of owner Shad Khan, announced Kassam’s departure in a statement.
“Karim and the team have come to the conclusion that it is in our mutual best interest to move in different directions,” Khan said, according to ESPN’s Mike DiRocco. “We wish Karim nothing but the best.”
The team originally brought in Kassam on Feb. 19 to oversee the football technology and analytics department and was also tasked with helping with salary-cap management. The reasons for his departure aren’t known at this time.
Before he was hired by the Jaguars, Kassam worked as the director of baseball research for the Minnesota Twins after serving five years with the Pittsburgh Steelers as an analytics and football research coordinator.
This is a fairly large shakeup to the front office to make so early on, as Kassam was expected to play a major role in the expanding field of analytics. But it seems Jacksonville will now have to go in a different direction.
