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Michael DiRocco
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars have hired former Los Angeles Rams personnel executive James Gladstone as the team’s new general manager, the team announced Friday.
Gladstone, who has been with the Rams for the past nine seasons, has been their director of scouting strategy for the past three seasons. In that role he worked with general manager Les Snead in strategic planning and the execution of the team’s daily scouting processes. He also scouted players and worked on special projects.
“James emerged as my choice, and our choice, following a painstaking but energizing interview process that left nothing to doubt,” Jaguars owner Shad Khan said in a statement. “Every candidate delivered, and I am grateful to them all for their preparation and time spent with us this week in Jacksonville. In the end, we found James to be a class ahead and exceptional in every regard — vision, new ideas, communication, chemistry and a keen understanding of the league and our team, to name a few of many virtues he will bring immediately to the Jaguars. It’s going to be fun watching James work with our football leadership team of [head coach] Liam Coen, [executive VP of football operations] Tony Boselli and [chief football strategy officer] Tony Khan, but most of all it will be rewarding. I am confident of that.
“This is also an occasion to thank Jaguars fans everywhere for their support and faith over the years. I know we can count on them to warmly welcome James to Duval while rallying behind our organization and team as we chart a new and promising path forward.”
Gladstone joined the Rams in 2016 as a senior assistant to Snead. He was promoted to senior assistant to the GM/player personnel coordinator in 2018 and then to the team’s director of scouting strategy in 2019.
Gladstone spent two years in that role before being named the Rams’ director of scouting in 2021. He again assumed the role of director of scouting strategy in 2022.
After taking quarterback Jared Goff first overall in 2016, the Rams went seven years without a first-round pick because Snead used them in multiple trades. One of those trades brought quarterback Matthew Stafford to Los Angeles in 2021 in return for Goff, first-round picks in 2022 and 2023, and a third-round pick in 2021.
The Rams won the Super Bowl in Stafford’s first season.
The Rams used their first-round pick in 2024 on edge rusher Jared Verse (19th overall), who went on to be the Associated Press Defensive Rookie of the Year after leading all rookies in QB hits (18), pressures (77) and hurries (56).
Coen is familiar with Gladstone from his four seasons with the Rams, serving as the assistant receivers and assistant QB coach during 2018-20 and as offensive coordinator in 2022.
Gladstone, 34, was the youngest of the five finalists the Jaguars interviewed for the GM position. He beat out San Francisco 49ers director of scouting and football operations Josh Williams (37), Green Bay Packers VP of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan (47), Chicago Bears assistant GM Ian Cunningham (39), and Jaguars interim GM Ethan Waugh (50).
Cleveland’s Andrew Berry is the youngest GM in NFL history, with the Browns hiring him at age 32 in 2020.
Gladstone replaces Trent Baalke, who was the Jaguars’ general manager from 2021 until Jan. 22, when he and Khan decided to mutually part ways. Khan initially retained Baalke when he fired head coach Doug Pederson on Jan. 6, saying that afternoon in a news conference that a complete organizational overhaul would be “suicide.” He also said that if any coaching candidate expressed reservations about the organizational structure or working with Baalke, he would be willing to address the topic.
That might have been what caused the split. The Jaguars lost out on Ben Johnson, the top head-coaching candidate in the hiring cycle, to the Bears. That left Coen, Tampa Bay‘s offensive coordinator, as the front-runner, but Coen backed out of a scheduled in-person interview with the Jaguars on Jan. 22 and opted to remain with the Bucs.
After Baalke’s departure, however, Khan got Coen to agree to come to Jacksonville the next day. Baalke’s presence wasn’t the primary reason Coen had declined an in-person interview initially, but it played a role, according to multiple Jaguars sources. Coen spent the day in Jacksonville, and the two sides eventually agreed to a deal late that night.
With Gladstone now in place as the general manager, the Jaguars’ top three decision-makers — Gladstone, Coen and Tony Boselli — are all in their roles for the first time.