New Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said recently that he felt like there needed to be some “healing” with the players who were in Jacksonville last season and had to suffer through what went down during the debacle that was Urban Meyer’s brief tenure as the Jaguars’ head coach in 2021.
“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,” Pederson said, via the Associated Press. “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.”
Meyer was fired in mid-December of last year, just 13 games into his lone season in Jacksonville, after his tumultuous and dysfunctional time as the Jaguars’ head coach during which there were locker room disputes and altercations with players among other reported incidents.
The Jags finished the season 3-14, and Pederson was hired to replace Meyer in February. Although Pederson has only been the team’s head coach for a short period, former Clemson and current Jags quarterback Trevor Lawrence can already feel a difference around the franchise with Pederson and his staff ushering in a new era.
“I think that’s the biggest thing in a team is just trusting each other — trusting in the guys in the locker room, but also the staff,” Lawrence said, meeting with the media on Monday after the first day of organized team activities. “That’s something, clearly, we didn’t have a lot of last year. So, I think our locker room did a great job last year of staying together.
“But it’s cool to see him make that a priority, and he knows and understands that is definitely something that we have to make sure that we have in this building. And I do think we’re building that, and from everything I’ve seen, everybody’s trusting one another and really just going to work and preparing ourselves.”
You can watch Lawrence’s full interview with the media following the first day of OTAs below:
–Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
