A report in The Athletic on Monday adds new details to Urban Meyer’s disastrous and brief time as Jacksonville Jaguars head coach.
Meyer’s reign in Jacksonville lasted just 13 games as he became the latest successful college coach to fail in the NFL. According to The Athletic, Meyer told the Jaguars he has researched NFL players extensively as he prepared to step up to the professional game. However, it soon became apparent his knowledge was barely above the level of the most casual of NFL fans. Sources said Meyer was unaware of Pro Bowl players such as Jamal Adams and Deebo Samuel and, most damning, appeared to be unfamiliar with arguably the most talented player in the league, three-time defensive player of the year Aaron Donald. According to one source, Meyer asked: “Who’s this 99 guy on the Rams? I’m hearing he might be a problem for us.”
During preseason he insulted a room full of players by saying they would not be able to get a job for “$15 an hour” if he cut them. In another meeting he reduced one player to tears and one member of the Jaguars was so incensed by the incident that he reportedly confronted the coach about it the following day.
According to wide receiver DJ Chark, no one at the Jaguars felt safe during Meyer’s tenure. “He feels like threats are what motivates,” Chark told The Athletic. “I know he would come up to us and tell us if the receivers weren’t doing good, he wasn’t going to fire us, he was going to fire our coach. He would usually say that when the coach was around.”
A veteran staff member described Meyer’s time in charge as “the most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of.” Meyer would also reportedly blame his own unpopular coaching decision on his staff rather than taking responsibility himself.
In January, Meyer admitted he had failed at the Jaguars. “It was the worst experience I’ve had in my professional lifetime,” Meyer said in an appearance on Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich. “What really got me, I almost don’t want to say people accept it, I mean, you lose a game, and you just keep ... I would seriously have self-talk. I went through that whole depression thing too, where I’d stare at the ceilings and [think] ‘Are we doing everything possible?’ because I really believed we had a roster that was good enough to win games. I just don’t think we did a great job.”
One of Meyer’s most damning decisions came following a Thursday night game at Cincinnati last September. He chose to stay behind with family instead of flying home with his team and then was caught on video the following night behaving inappropriately with a woman at a bar in Columbus, Ohio. Jaguars owner Shad Khan publicly reprimanded Meyer at the time, saying he needed to regain the owner’s trust and respect.
