An explosive report from NFL Media’s Mike Silver broke on Tuesday detailing major issues between first-year head coach Urban Meyer and his Jacksonville Jaguars organization.
Said report was released days after Meyer, one of the greatest coaches in college football history, was seen getting up close and personal with a young woman in Ohio. This came following Jacksonville’s Thursday night road loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Instead of making his way back with his team to Florida, Meyer opted to stay behind.
The Jaguars ultimately released a statement about Urban Meyer and the incident, clearly displaying their frustration with the first-year head coach in the process.
“I have addressed this matter with Urban. Specifics of our conversation will be held in confidence. What I will say is his conduct last weekend was inexcusable,” Jaguars owner Shad Khan said in a statement, via the team’s official website. “I appreciate Urban’s remorse, which I believe is sincere. Now, he must regain our trust and respect. That will require a personal commitment from Urban to everyone who supports, represents or plays for our team. I am confident he will deliver.”
As for the Silver report, it was about as damning as it gets.
“He has zero credibility in that stadium,” an unnamed Jaguars player told the NFL insider. “He had very little to begin with. “It’s bad. I don’t know how he’s gonna function.”
With the Jaguars at 0-4 on the season and attempting to help rookie first-round pick Trevor Lawrence progress under center, the organization must now cut ties with Urban Meyer. Here’s three reasons why.
Urban Meyer can’t regain trust
Khan’s statement was not deadpan or company line. Instead, it was rather clear that the Jaguars’ hierarchy is not happy with Meyer — even after his apology. That’s where the most important line of the statement comes into play.
“Now, he must regain our trust and respect.”
An NFL head coach can’t magically regain the trust of his organization and players in the locker room. That’s especially true when we’re talking about someone with Meyer’s reputation. This is magnified by the fact that he’s coached all of four games.
Between now and the end of the regular season, what could Meyer possibly do to regain the trust of his organization? Based on comments from these unnamed Jaguars players, that ship has sailed. It’s actually even more damning than the initial report from Mr. Silver.
“We looked at him like, WTF? Right when he left everyone started dying laughing. And he knew it,” one player told Silver when asked about Meyer’s apology to the team. Just, ouch!
Trevor Lawrence needs better than Urban Meyer
This goes without saying. One of the unintended consequences of Jacksonville losing its final 15 games a season ago was the acquisition of the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, and with it, a generational quarterback.
Ever since his freshman season at Clemson, Lawrence was seen as a sure-fire top pick once he opted to go pro. Nothing we saw from the college football champion dispelled that notion during his three seasons with the Tigers.
Lawrence is the face of the Jaguars franchise. He is going to be the individual that either helps this team return from the abyss or plays a major role in it continuing to be irrelevant on the broader NFL stage. Urban Meyer is not a central component in that. Meyer has never been a central component in that.
With Jacksonville having now lost 19 consecutive games and mired in some major drama surrounding a first-year head coach, it’s time that the brass makes that decision. An uncomfortable one. Admit their mistake with Urban Meyer and move on from him after less than a handful of games.
Think about it this way. Nothing that happens on the field in Duval moving forward this season will help the Jags return to relevance over the short term. It’s time to look to the future, one that obviously won’t include Meyer. Lawrence deserves that finality right now.
It’s not just one mistake from Urban Meyer
Ari Meirov of Pro Football Focus broke it down big time on social media earlier on Tuesday. To say the list of things Meyer has done since he was hired by Jacksonville this past summer includes multiple loads of laundry would be an understatement.
There’s absolutely no going back from this. Meyer has made his bed. Mistakes of this magnitude aren’t something that a head coach can come back from. It’s that simple.