Jaguars hiring Cardinals’ Spencer Whipple as their new quarterbacks coach
Feb 4, 2025, 8:00 AM
The Jacksonville Jaguars are hiring Arizona Cardinals passing game specialist Spencer Whipple as their next quarterbacks coach under new head coach Liam Coen, Arizona Sports confirmed.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter was the first to report the move.
Whipple spent six seasons in Arizona and worked under two regimes. He began as an offensive quality control coach under former head coach Kliff Kingsbury in 2019.
Whipple moved to assistant wide receivers coach from 2020-21 before taking over as co-pass game coordinator alongside Cam Turner in 2022.
Among his added duties under the old regime was calling offensive plays in a 2021 win over the Cleveland Browns with Kingsbury dealing with COVID-19.
Whipple also served as interim running backs coach when Don Shumpert, who had taken over for former RBs coach James Saxon after he was put on administrative leave, was fired in 2021.
Whipple stuck around when the new regime got to town, serving as the team’s pass game specialist — with an emphasis on wide receivers and tight ends — the past two seasons.
That also included coaching the running backs room for a game last year when Autry Denson was dealing with a personal matter.
“Especially early on in your career, no matter where you’re at, you want to get exposed as much as possible,” Whipple told Arizona Sports in August. “Just being around different positions and soaking in that knowledge and getting around other coaches. Not just the football knowledge but the teaching methods of each coach is a little bit different. Everybody does it a different way.
“Just being able to document those things so I can infuse those into my own style to create some ways of how I want to teach and coach. I’m just really fortunate to be in all those rooms and be moved around and exposed to all those different things.”
Before NFL coaching career kicked off, Whipple spent five years at UMass where he was the team’s tight ends coach (2014), wide receivers coach (2015-17) and passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach (2018).
During that stretch, he crossed paths with Coen, who served as UMass’ pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2014-15.
Spencer Whipple latest Cardinals departure
Whipple joins a growing list of Cardinals assistant coaches heading elsewhere this offseason.
The departures began with former inside linebackers coach Sam Siefkes, who heads to Virginia Tech as the program’s new defensive coordinator.
Not long after that was reported, Arizona decided to move on from defensive line coach Derrick LeBlanc.
The offense was not impervious to departures, either, with offensive line coach Klayton Adams taking the Dallas Cowboys OC job last week.
The Cardinals, however, have been swift in filling the vacancies, with Justin Frye (offensive line), Winston DeLattiboudere (defensive line) and Cristian Garcia (inside linebackers coach) coming aboard in the past week.