Veteran wide receiver Marvin Jones Jr. played nine NFL seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals and Detroit Lions before joining the Jacksonville Jaguars as a free agent in 2021.
Jones, 32, signed the two-year deal about two months after the Jaguars hired former Florida and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer to take the reins of an NFL team for the first time in his coaching career.
On the “Open Mike” podcast with Mike Silver, Jones was asked how long it took him to realize that a disaster was brewing in Jacksonville.
“Around like the second week of camp,” Jones said. “You know, the vibes, and like the meetings. You know if you said one thing, it wouldn’t be true. I was like look, everybody in the league we all have phones and we can all fact-check. Just be real. That’s one of the big things, somebody that’s transparent and somebody that’s real, and you know, tells us the truth. Especially in this day in age, because you can look up everything and see if it was right or not.”
Silver asked if Meyer would say untrue things about himself and what he’d done in the past and Jones said “yeah, it was pretty much everything.”
Meyer, 58, was fired before the end of his first season with the Jaguars after a myriad of scandals and a 2-11 start to the year. In a December 2021 report detailing the discord inside the Jaguars locker room, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero said Jones had a spat with Meyer on the practice field.
Receiver Marvin Jones — one of the locker room’s most respected and mild-mannered veterans — became so angry with Meyer’s public and private criticism of the receiver group that he left the facility until other staff members convinced him to come back and had a heated argument with Meyer during practice.
Jones still managed to lead the Jaguars in receiving during the 2021 season with 73 receptions for 832 yards and four touchdowns.