JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Tom Coughlin was fired Monday by the Jacksonville Jaguars after three consecutive losing seasons that obscured his resounding early success with the franchise.

		Monday, Dec. 30 Tom Coughlin got a fair shake and had a good eight-year run in Jacksonville. His time had run its course, and the Jaguars will try to get new blood, rebuild and start over. Under Coughlin, the Jaguars took their shots, and they came close. Unfortunately, they came up empty in the two times they made it to the AFC championship game. And that's the bottom line. Coughlin will end up somewhere else. A head coach needs to be consistent and accountable and must demand accountability from his players and staff, and I think he brings those qualities.

Owner Wayne Weaver said the decision to fire the team's autocratic architect was the most difficult he has ever made.

''There's a point in this business where you have to say, 'We need innovative new ideas, new fresh approaches and we have to move in a different direction,''' Weaver said.

Coughlin, the only coach the team has ever had, leaves with a 72-64 record in eight seasons, including two trips to the AFC title game. But Jacksonville finished 6-10 this year and went 19-29 over the last three.

Just as importantly, attendance dwindled, as fans in this small NFL market grew weary of the team and the man coaching it.

''When the show doesn't sell out on Broadway for three years in a row, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen,'' defensive coordinator John Pease said.

Coughlin did not return messages left at his house by The Associated Press.

Weaver said he has compiled a list of candidates he wants to interview to replace Coughlin and hopes to make a hire by the end of January. The owner said he would not interview Jimmy Johnson or Bill Parcells, two coaches whose names have been floated as possible successors.

Weaver did say he would end the days of one man controlling every facet of the franchise -- the way Coughlin did.

''I have a vision, but I haven't decided how that structure will work,'' Weaver said.

Hardly anyone denied that the 56-year-old Coughlin knew his Xs and Os. But he was more than just Jacksonville's coach. He handled everything, and both his personality and his personnel decisions came under more and more scrutiny as time passed.

A funny, articulate, compassionate man, Coughlin very rarely let his softer side show. He never connected personally with his players or with Jacksonville's fans, a reality that hurt him in the locker room and the community.

	Tom Coughlin is on his way out as the Jaguars coach after eight years at the helm.

''After listening to the same thing over and over, you can have a tendency to shut it out,'' cornerback Jason Craft said.

Player after player would leave the Jaguars and rip Coughlin for his poor people skills, his demanding practice regimen and a list of rules and fineable offenses that bordered on ridiculous.

But at the beginning, the act worked.

The Jaguars qualified for the playoffs after the 1996 season, and on Jan. 4, 1997, Coughlin coached them to one of the biggest NFL upsets ever. The 30-27 victory over Denver in the divisional playoffs still stands as the team's most electrifying moment.

The Jaguars won their first division title in 1998 and the next year, they led the league in victories at 14-2.

They defeated Miami 62-7 in the second round of the playoffs and seemed destined for the Super Bowl. But they were upset by Tennessee for the AFC championship -- a humiliating 33-14 defeat at home.

Injuries derailed another run at the title in 2000. From there, the franchise spiraled into a salary cap mess from which it is still trying to recover.

Instead of pursuing Steve Spurrier after last season, Weaver made the unpopular move of extending Coughlin's contract through 2004, then dragged him out into the community to ask for support from the fans.

That support never came, and attendance dropped by an average of 3,500 fans a game this year.

Monday, Weaver conceded Spurrier would have been near the top of his list had he been looking for a coach after last season. But he wasn't, ''and I don't look back too much.''

Coughlin's history with personnel decisions was checkered. For every Mark Brunell and Jimmy Smith he discovered there was an R. Jay Soward or Bryce Paup to balance the ledger.

More than anything, though, it was Coughlin's insistence -- with Weaver's approval -- on keeping the aging, expensive Super Bowl-contending core of his team together for two years too long that landed the Jaguars in their current mess.

''I don't apologize for it,'' Weaver said. ''We had five great years. And when you have a chance to grab for that big, gaudy ring, you do it.''