Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan and general manager Trent Baalke needed to nail this head coaching search after they fired Urban Meyer.
They needed to desperately find the right coach to help get second-year quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s development back on track and to regain trust with the players in the franchise. Most of the players lost faith in the team due to the dysfunctionality of Meyer’s tenure last season.
Khan and Baalke hired head coach Doug Pederson and tasked him with restoring the trust between the players and the coaching staff. Pederson met with the media on Friday at the start of Jaguars rookie minicamp and spoke about the process of rebuilding that trust with the players again.
He confirmed that the trust between the players and coaches was broken under Meyer last season. Pederson said that he and his new coaching staff have had to repair those relationships and have made progress toward doing so.
“I do believe there has to be some kind of healing with the situation and everything that transpired last year because it’s just there’s a lack of trust that was broken, I think,” Pederson said. “For me, it’s about gaining the trust back and they have to see it through me. They have to see the transparency, the honesty.
“I’ve always said I’m going to be open with them and I want them to be open with me. It just comes down to communication and having an open line of communication. We’ve been able to have some conversations that way in team settings and I think the guys have really embraced it and are doing well.”
Meyer’s hire will arguably go down in NFL history as one of the worst because it was one scandal after another. It started when he didn’t fly home with the team after losing to the Cincinnati Bengals and was caught in a bar with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Then there was another notable incident where he allegedly kicked former kicker Josh Lambo.
When considering those incidents in addition to the others Meyer was behind last season, Pederson and his staff don’t have an easy task on their hands. However, it seems like they are doing a good job restoring the player-to-coach trust, which should help the team improve in 2022.