The Jacksonville Jaguars’ 2021 season has been a disaster, to put it lightly, and the team will head into Week 14 with a 2-10 record, hoping to beat the Tennessee Titans. The team will have a tall task on their hands to beat a Tennessee team that is leading the AFC South with an 8-4 record and one that has the Jags’ number in Nashville (where the Jags haven’t won since 2013).
However, it appears they will make their trip a few states north with bigger problems than the Titans to address and will need to iron out some internal issues for the long-term future. According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, first-year Jags coach Urban Meyer has been the root of rising tensions within the team and isn’t seeing eye-to-eye with players and coaches.
The report comes after the Jags were in the NFL headlines for their suspicious handling of running back James Robinson after he came out to say he felt like the team benched him for 20 plays after he fumbled the ball Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. Then earlier this week, the team’s No. 1 overall pick from April, Trevor Lawrence, revealed that he went to the staff and told them that the second-year running back needed to be on the field due to being one of the Jags’ best players.
Pelissero’s report shared various other shocking incidents that Meyer has been the root of, like the first-year head coach getting into a heated argument with one of the team’s most respected veterans Marvin Jones Jr. The argument was a result of tensions boiling over Meyer’s criticisms of the receivers group.
Pelissero also mentioned one occasion where Meyer delivered a message that insinuated that they were losers. According to the report, he challenged individuals on his staff to defend their résumés by discussing when they’ve won in their careers.
All of this comes in a season when Meyer also hired Chris Doyle, who was accused of racist behavior at Iowa, to run the team’s strength and conditioning program and was caught in a Cincinnati bar with a woman that wasn’t his wife dancing on him. Needless to say, this isn’t what owner Shad Khan wanted when he turned to Meyer for leadership over his franchise, and the last five games are going to be interesting in terms of news surrounding the organization.