Dating back to his time with Bowling Green, Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer has had success at every stop he’s made as a head coach, which is a big reason Shad Khan wanted him leading his organization. However, despite that success, he’s tied (with four other coaches) for the seventh-best odds to win coach of the year, according to BetMGM.
Meyer’s +3500 (35/1) figure only slots him ahead of five coaches in the league with those being Jon Gruden, Dan Campbell, Nick Sirianni, David Culley, and Zach Taylor. However, that figure also puts him at the same number as Mike McCarthy, Matt Rhule, Mike Tomlin, and Cliff Kingsbury.
Talk about some interesting company.
Overall, 22 other head coaches came in with better odds than the Jags, which is not surprising. After all, Meyer is inheriting a 1-15 roster when looking at last year’s record.
While he hasn’t coached on the NFL level, Meyer will come into 2021 with an absurd .854 win percentage on the college level (187–32 record) and three national championship victories. And despite the NFL not being too kind to coaches who’ve made a similar leap like Nick Saban, Meyer has said he’s expecting to win immediately and isn’t of the mindset that the Jags will take several years to rebuild.
One thing he’ll have in his corner is first overall pick Trevor Lawrence, who has +275 odds to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, good for the best in the league. If that happens and Lawrence could get the Jags to the playoffs, that would mark significant progress from last season and definitely should get the attention of the league. However, most pundits have come out to say that feels unlikely and expect the Jags to win sigma’s or less. which still would be a huge leap from 1-15.
If Meyer were to achieve the feat, he’d be the second consecutive rookie head coach to do so as Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski did it in 2020. The rookie head coach was able to get the Browns into the postseason for the first time since 2002 after they previously had won just six games. However, if Meyer made the postseason, it would prove to be a more impressive achievement when considering Jacksonville’s 2020 record.
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