A Beautiful Mind | Why Dan Clayton is Going to Change the Jaguars
Clayton, the new owner of the Jaguar franchise, is a smooth operator both on and off the field.
THE MAN SITTING ACROSS from me looks nothing like his former predecessor who use to occupy the owners office at Jaguars headquarter. For so long, I was accustomed to seeing Mr. Khan bustling about the office constantly yelling for advisors. Now the office is quiet as Dan Clayton, dressed in an Armani suit with a simple black tie, is the only one in the office during the fading twilight of a summer Sunday going through a college scouting report. I joke that he is already looking ahead to the next offseason. He smiles and says, “You can never plan too early.” That is the way Clayton has always been, always planning, always working.
“I have never been the smartest in any profession I have been in, but I have made it a habit to outwork people far smarter than me.” At just 39 years old, Clayton is one of the youngest owners of a professional football franchise. Growing up in Virginia, Clayton began investing while working on a bachelor's degree in engineering from Virginia Tech. By the time he had finished up his doctorate degree he had already made his first million.
“Everything comes down to numbers whether it is signing a player to a multi million dollar deal, or just deciding what to charge for a bottle of Pepsi on game day,” Clayton says as he hands me a glass filled with the bubbly soda. “Don’t worry, that one is on the house,” he says with a wink.
Football is a business and no one is more aware of that than Clayton. Despite being one of the NFL’s newest owners, he is also in one of the worst situations instantly. The Jaguars who have been plagued by mediocrity for more than a decade now sit at the bottom of not just the rankings but also the bottom of income and net worth as a franchise. Clayton plans to change both of those things.
New Jaguars owner Dan Clayton is ready to start rebuilding the franchise.
“The mistake people make is they think, ‘oh we just need to rebuild our offense or we just need to fix this.’ There is no quick fix for the problems we are facing, this rebuild, and make no mistake that is what it is, has to include all facets of this organization, if we are to be successful.”
Clayton turns away from a window he is staring out of with a little smile on his face. The kind of slight, wistful knowing smile that makes me feel like he can see something I cannot or knows something that I don’t. “We are going to do it too, just wait and see.”
Clayton was not always so confident when he got into the football world as general manager for the Buffalo Bills under then owner the late Ralph Wilson. “Ralph (Wilson) would call me into his office when I would get real down on myself following a loss or a transaction that didn’t go the way I wanted and he would say ‘Dan, did you do everything you could? Then what are you worrying about. We will get it next time.”
Under the tutelage of Wilson, Clayton sprang up through the management ranks spending time at both the professional and collegiate level as both a coach and a general manager. At this point in his career there is very little the young owner from Virginia hasn’t done.
At his introductory press conference, Clayton faced the Jacksonville reporters and coolly fielded questions regarding his head coach and troubled star wide receiver Justin Blackmon. He is mute on both subjects when I ask him if he would like to comment any further on either subject. He just smiles slightly as he slowly shakes his head from across the desk. He knows it is rebuilding process and he knows how high the pressure is of the job he just bought. Looking at the dreadful roster that Clayton is going through, anyone can see the task ahead is a monumental one. Oddly though I feel relaxed and calm about all of it as I talk with Clayton on this Sunday evening. Remembering back to when Mr. Khan use to run the show, I always left interviews feeling like I had run in a track meet. I had to run at a million miles an hour to keep up with the man as he dragged me along on his lofty visions of the team. As I look across the table at Clayton, I instead feel as if I am playing a calm and calculated game of chess over a glass of brandy. Every move has been analyzed to the last detail, every decision weighed and measured.
As we walk together out of the Jaguars main building we pause briefly to admire the empty trophy case which displays a small placard reserving it for the team’s future Lombardi trophy. Clayton slowly turns his head to me and with that knowing smile says, “I think we are going to have to get a bigger trophy case.” With a smile and wink, he shakes my hand and turns to walk in the other direction in the fading Jacksonville sunlight.