Capers Joins Coughlin's Jags

Dom Capers became an employee of Tom Coughlin on Tuesday.

With that strange twist, the debate over which coach came out ahead in the 1995 expansion battle between the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars was officially put to rest.

Capers, fired last month as coach of the Panthers, will serve as Coughlin's defensive coordinator with the Jaguars. He replaces Dick Jauron, who left after four seasons to coach the Chicago Bears.

"I'm thrilled to join Tom's staff and to have the opportunity to help upgrade the Jaguars' defense," Capers said in a statement released after the two interviewed Tuesday morning. "The Jaguars have shown constant improvement each season, and I look forward to this new challenge with great anticipation."

Capers is expected to make about $200,000 next season and will probably forfeit a chunk of the approximately $1 million he would have received from the Panthers had he not accepted another NFL job.

That's just one oddity in a move rife with irony.

Fans in the two cities and NFL observers pitted the coaches against each other as soon as they were hired to lead their expansion teams -- Coughlin in early 1994, Capers in early 1995.

Both had reputations as tough disciplinarians with great football minds, but their teams approached expansion in vastly different ways -- Carolina going for free-agent pickups engineered by then-general manager Bill Polian and Jacksonville opting to build through the draft, with Coughlin making all the decisions.

Success came quickly to both. Capers' Panthers won the NFC West title in 1996 while Coughlin's Jaguars made it to the AFC Championship game as a wild-card team.

The roads diverged from there, with Jacksonville making two more playoff appearances and Capers losing his job after going 7-9 and 4-12 and losing control of his locker room.

Coughlin put history behind him and thought of only one thing -- hiring the best coach available.

"Dom Capers is an excellent football coach," Coughlin said. ``He has ascended through the coaching ranks, proving his quality at each level. He's a great fit for the Jaguars' organization."

In Capers, Coughlin gets the coordinator who led the Pittsburgh Steelers defense back to prominence from 1992-94, and one of the first big proponents of the zone-blitz schemes that have been in vogue the last few years. Before that, Capers spent six years as a defensive backs coach with New Orleans.

His task will be to revamp a defense that has finished 25th and 23rd in yardage allowed the last two seasons. The Jaguars are expected to turn over no fewer than four members of the defense through free agency and the draft. A shift to the 3-4 alignment that Capers has always preferred is not out of the question.

Meanwhile, Coughlin still must hire an offensive coordinator to replace Chris Palmer, who left for the newest expansio team, the Cleveland Browns.

Former Bears coordinator Matt Cavanaugh was in town Monday for interviews, but left to talk with the Baltimore Ravens.

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