Urban Meyer’s first season as an NFL head coach has been a complete disaster, and it manages to get worse with each coming day.
On Sunday, Meyer threatened to fire any team staffers who leaked information to reporters about the Jacksonville Jaguars’ dysfunction. This came one day after NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero detailed how poorly Meyer has treated players and coaches this season, which included calling his assistants “losers” during a meeting.
Well, the latest report about the Jaguars’ turmoil wasn’t under the veil of anonymity. Former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo put his name behind accusations of workplace abuse from Meyer.
In a Wednesday report from Tampabay.com, Lambo described Meyer intentionally kicking him during warmups and berating him after the fact. Via Tampabay.com:
“I’m in a lunge position. Left leg forward, right leg back,” Lambo said. “… Urban Meyer, while I’m in that stretch position, comes up to me and says, ‘Hey Dips–t, make your f–king kicks!’ And kicks me in the leg.”
Lambo spoke for the first time publicly about what he said happened to him in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times.
“It certainly wasn’t as hard as he could’ve done it, but it certainly wasn’t a love tap,” Lambo said. “Truthfully, I’d register it as a five (out of 10). Which in the workplace, I don’t care if it’s football or not, the boss can’t strike an employee. And for a second, I couldn’t believe it actually happened. Pardon my vulgarity, I said, ‘Don’t you ever f–king kick me again!’ And his response was, ‘I’m the head ball coach, I’ll kick you whenever the f–k I want.’”
Lambo would describe another exchange he had with Meyer when he took issue with the kick. Meyer, according to Lambo, responded defiantly:
“He sees me and I’m by myself and he kind of cornered me and comes up to me and says, ‘Are you going to put a smile on that face?’” Lambo said. “I said, ‘I’ll smile if you’ll stop kicking me.’”
…
“The details of the conversation I do remember, I was having issues with how he was coaching me throughout spring, throughout camp that I had kept to myself and I expressed a couple of those issues with the special teams coordinator, who related them to Urban, who seemingly halfway understood. His response was, ‘OK, you don’t like me doing this, OK. If you don’t like me doing that, fine. But if you ever speak to me like that again, you’ll be out of here. You’re the first player I’ve ever let speak to me that way in my career, and if you do it again, you’re gone.’”
Lambo reported the incident to both his agent and the Jaguars’ legal counsel. Lambo said he was never given the opportunity to meet with the Jaguars’ legal team — a claim that the team disputed. Meyer also denied Lambo’s description of events.
Lambo was released in October.
You can read the full report here.
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