The Jaguars' Liam Coen hiring process makes just about everyone look bad

Less than two days ago, Liam Coen looked set to return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a second season as OC, after a sensational debut with Baker Mayfield, Bucky Irving and company. Coen had drawn some looks as a head coaching candidate, most notably from the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he'd turned them all down, and the Bucs were prepared to make him the richest coordinator in NFL history.

And then all hell broke loose. Over the course of about 24 hours: Coen accepted Tampa Bay's contract offer, ghosted the team when it was time to sign said contract, secretly flew down to Jacksonville to meet with owner Shad Khan in the wake of GM Trent Baalke's firing, then eventually agreed to take a massive offer to become the next head coach of the Jaguars.

Got all that? It was a whirlwind day and a half, one that left plenty of Bucs fans fuming. But as the dust settles and more details emerge, it's become apparent that Coen and the Jags were even more slippery than it first seemed, and both should have some tough questions to answer about how this whole thing went down.

Jaguars and Liam Coen should both some shame about how hiring process played out

There was a long stretch of silence between the report that Coen had agreed to return to the Bucs and the report that, actually, he was headed to Jacksonville. As it turns out, not even Tampa Bay had any idea what he was up to: While Tampa Bay was trying to get a hold of the man it thought had just agreed to remain as offensive coordinator, Coen was leaving them on read ... because he was secretly back in Jacksonville, and he knew that his new contract was contingent upon not visiting the Jaguars.

When Coen did finally get back to Bucs head coach Todd Bowles, he apologized and explained that he'd been at the doctor due to one of his kids being sick, only mentioning the Jacksonville opportunity in passing. At that point, he'd already made up his mind: Once the Jaguars had agreed to fire Baalke, Coen was never going to pass up a chance at the job.

So on one side you have Coen deceiving a team that thought it had an agreement in place with him. And on the other, you have something arguably even uglier. According to a report from Albert Breer, the Jags also had reason to want to keep Coen's visit private: Jacksonville had previously interviewed Robert Saleh, but the Rooney Rule requires speaking with at least two minority candidates, and the Jags were supposed to have Patrick Graham in for an interview on Thursday. So the team kept a lid on things and made Graham go through a sham process, despite knowing they already had their guy.

Once they'd successfully checked that box, they were safe to announce their new hire to the world ... and receive a ton of backlash from fans around the league. Maybe Coen will work out in Jacksonville, making his dynamite offense sing with Trevor Lawrence at the helm. But karma certainly won't be on their side.