Report: Shad Khan meets with Jags staff following damning report about team dysfunction

USA TODAY’s Josina Anderson provided some details of the meeting Shad Khan had with the #Jaguars’ staff to address the report published about the team’s dysfunction.

Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan has said he wants to be more hands-on with his team this season, and with a damning report from Tom Pelissero hitting the web this past Saturday, he’s stepped in to address the Jags staff directly. According to USA TODAY’s Josina Anderson, Khan recently huddled with his staff for a meeting during which he made clear that he wasn’t pleased with the leak.

According to Anderson, Khan told the staff to tighten up and to improve together while still expressing confidence in them. However, there were no “definitive assurances” or “discouragement” shared by Khan about the future.

Also according to Anderson, those at the meeting emphasized that they felt as though they weren’t “on the same page,” and that they felt unappreciated and undermined, though there was a desire to patch things up.

The meeting comes after Pelissero’s report, which detailed the dysfunction within the organization and largely cast Meyer as the root of it, was published and widely shared Saturday. One of the most controversial aspects of the report was the mention of a meeting among the staff during which Meyer allegedly had some assistants defend their résumés while referring to them as “losers.” He denied referring to them that way Sunday after the Jags’ loss against the Tennessee Titans, though he did admit to being hard on his staff. 

“Yeah, calling someone a loser, that’s inaccurate,” Meyer said. ”I have high expectations for our coaches. I’m very demanding of our coaches and expect guys to be held accountable for their positions, and the times when they’re not, we address it. But I assure you there was not whatever report — Amy (Palcic) told me something about that. That’s nonsense.”

Pelissero’s report also mentioned an argument between Meyer and veteran receiver Marvin Jones Jr. about his criticisms of the receivers corps. Jones reportedly left the facility, but returned after staff members convinced him to come back. And while Meyer has denied that incident, at least one other local beat reporter, Gene Frenette of the Florida Times-Union, has confirmed it.

“And then the other — oh, Marvin Jones. Marvin Jones had a conversation because he came to me and said that there was something in the media, and I said, what’s that, and I didn’t read it, and he said that people were blaming the receivers for all the issues on offense,” Meyer said Sunday. “And I went back and I looked at it, and it was about — I think I said something like we have some injury issues and some lack of consistency. We talked about that, and he’s great. We moved on, and he just — one thing about Marvin (Jones), and there’s a lot of players, especially these professional veterans, there’s a lot of pride.”

Among other noteworthy events detailed in the bombshell report was the revelation that it was Meyer who made the call to bench running back James Robinson Week 13, a move that Meyer previously blamed running backs coach Bernie Parmalee for. 

For the time being, it seems that Khan would prefer to make it through the season before making any drastic decisions. But with Saturday’s explosive report bringing added scrutiny to a short NFL career already rocked by scandal, it’s getting harder and harder to envision a bright future for the organization under Meyer’s guidance.