Despite real and valid concerns from past and present NFL players, new Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer has given Tim Tebow, most recently a baseball player and TV talking head, a chance to play tight end — a position he has never played before — in the NFL this season, when he will be 34 years old.
If you know anything about Meyer, this comes as no surprise. He previously hired a strength coach accused of racist behavior at Iowa, and has made a career out of avoiding any sort of accountability. He’s been able to do that because he was a college coach, and one of the best ever. Those guys have long gotten away with anything and everything.
It doesn’t work that way in the NFL. Meyer could have learned this from his pal Greg Schiano, who flamed out after trying to run the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as if they were the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, only to find that grown men playing under contract don’t appreciate having their coach pretend they have absolute power.
A college coach can lead by force; they have total control over a player’s scholarship and playing time and reputation with NFL scouts, and until recently had all of the leverage because it was difficult for players to transfer.
Running an NFL team is more about earning the right to lead by implementing successful systems and treating players like, well, valued employees rather than free labor “student-athletes.”
Nothing suggest Meyer won’t be able to do the former. Everything suggests he’ll fail miserably at the latter.
Because signing Tebow isn’t just Meyer giving his old pal a 39th chance. It’s a message to current and potential future Jaguars players about what matters to Meyer. Demonstrated skill and persistent training are secondary to existing loyalty. That’s poison in a professional organization.
A perfect example of how success in life is about who you know. https://t.co/XrvkLTh01P
— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) May 20, 2021
the NFL is the ultimate meritocracy right
— charles (crying online) mcdonald (@FourVerts) May 20, 2021
Players in the NFL are smart enough to know it’s not a true meritocracy — they remember Colin Kaepernick, and they see that a vast majority of the head coaches and GMs are white — but having a coach flaunt it in order to …. what? Get a PR boost? Add some “leadership” to the room?
There’s just no way to look at signing Tim Tebow to play professional football at this juncture as a move meant purely to make the team better. It sends the message, instead, that this is Meyer’s fiefdom and he’ll run it as he sees fit.
It’s demoralizing, quite frankly, that a person with Meyer’s history now has in front of him an opportunity to build a team around one of the most impressive QB prospects of all time. As hard as it is to root for Meyer, the alternative means Trevor Lawrence is mired in a mess and I don’t want to see that. He’s too good to be held back.
Meyer’s ultimate success will come down to how well he teaches the game and whether he can figure out a way to put his players in position to win. The difference in the NFL is that as soon as he falters on those fronts — and he will — players will question him and offer feedback. They need to be a part of the solution.
Considering the fact that he’s ignored so many people who told him how signing Tebow would play, I don’t feel good about Meyer doing what he needs to do in order to adjust and make it work. That’s just not who he is.
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