Tom Coughlin returned to the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2017 as their Executive VP of Football Operations. This was 15 years after his head coaching stint, but his philosophy of accountability, even in the front office, remained the same. If a press conference started at 10 a.m., you had to be present five minutes before. This was just one of the many rules he laid out for his players, and Leonard Fournette still remembers what those rules cost.

“We was in Jacksonville, we had Tom Coughlin, old school,” Fournette said on the 4th and South podcast. “If we didn’t come in shape, they used to fine us five to $10,000 per pound.”

Coughlin became the EVP the same year Fournette was drafted 4th overall to help the Jaguars’ running game. But he came into a regime that had strict rules against slouching, wearing hats in meetings, and sunglasses on the practice field. Players even had to adhere to a strict dress code in the hotel lobbies. Nothing went past Coughlin.

“He was old school like that. I came in at 232, I got fined $5,000, bro,” Fournette added. “I had to have a real man-to-man talk with him. I’m like, ‘Bro, listen, I need that five back. I need that nickel homie.’ We used to get fined for sitting in the training room too long. $10,000. If you came out there with white socks on, $10,000. He was the black sock politician.”

These fines racked up everywhere. Once, before a playoff game, two Jags stars missed the team meeting and ended up being fined $500 each. Despite the two confirming they had been in a car accident, the fine stayed. If you weren’t five minutes early to meetings, you’d get fined up to $1,000 – something Michael Strahan found out the hard way during Coughlin’s head coaching stint with the New York Giants.

However, in 2019 – Coughlin’s last year with the Jaguars – the fine machine finally broke at defensive end Dante Fowler Jr.’s expense. The NFLPA won a grievance after the team fined Fowler 25 times, totaling more than $700,000, for missed offseason medical appointments. The team cited these were “mandatory” sessions, but then went directly against the CBA.

The NFLPA didn’t stop there. It warned players away from Jacksonville, saying more than 25% of the grievances it had filed over the previous two seasons came from the Jaguars alone. The warning landed, and the Coughlin era collapsed under its own rules.

Player frustrations aside, Tom Coughlin’s aim had always been to demand the highest level of accountability from his players. And after all this time, Leonard Fournette looks at Coughlin through a lens of respect. He even sends a direct message to his old EVP.

“When I was younger, I ain’t understand him, Imma be real,” Fournette said. “But as I got older, when I moved on from Jacksonville and went to Tampa, I’m like, ‘Damn, T.C. was right, bro.’ He was right about a lot of s*** that I couldn’t see because I was young and immature. But Coach T.C., if you see this, listen, I appreciate you, dawg.”