Jacksonville will play its first game of the 2021 season without head coach Urban Meyer on Sunday, as the first-year coach was fired early Thursday morning after a week of reports on the toxic environment he cultivated in the locker room. Meyer reportedly alienated both players and staff, and after former kicker Josh Lambo went public with his allegation that Meyer had kicked him during warmups in August, the mounting pressure on owner Shad Khan became too much.
In his first public statements since being terminated, Meyer apologized to the city of Jacksonville, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
“I just apologize to Jacksonville,” Meyer said. “I love Jacksonville. It’s one of the reasons I took the job. I still think Shad’s a great owner. It’s heart-breaking. I just had a dream of it becoming a destination place with a new facility he agreed to build and some day to walk into that stadium where it’s standing room only. Because I know how bad the people of Jacksonville want it. So, I’m just heartbroken that we weren’t able to do that. I still believe it’s going to be done. It’s too good of a place.”
Meyer inherited a team that went 1-15 in 2020, and this year’s squad currently sits at 2-11 heading into Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans. In one season in Jacksonville, Meyer lost two more games than he did in his seven-year tenure at Ohio State.
He told Rapoport that he doesn’t handle losing well, and the losses this season began to “eat away” at him.
“I tell people, losing eats away at your soul,” Meyer said. “Once you start losing, it’s hard on everybody. I thought at one point, when we won two out of three, there was some momentum, great energy, the defense was really playing well. We were running the ball and then when that dried up on us, then we started turning the ball over. We had that bye week and then James Robinson gets hurt.
“Someone asked me about Vrabel’s [handshake], we’re really close. That had nothing to do with him. That’s probably one of my issues why I’ve thought some of the things I said: I can’t take losing. I try to accept it, it just eats away at my soul. And I believe our players deserve better.”
Despite the apologetic tone, Meyer continues to deny that any of the allegations made against him were true, including that he called his assistant coaches “losers,” had a verbal altercation with Marvin Jones Jr., and had a physical one with Lambo.
He does, however, tacitly admit that he lied regarding the usage of James Robinson. Though Meyer initially claimed that the decision was made by running backs coach Bernie Parmelee, the damning report from Tom Pelissero that ultimately led to his firing stated that the decision was Meyer’s.
The former Jags coach explained the decision to bench Robinson but does confirm that it was his choice.
“We discussed it as a staff,” Meyer said. “‘When you see someone lose the ball or even see them be loose with the ball, get them out of the game, get their mind right and then get them back in.’ When he fumbled, I said, ‘Take him out.’ We took him out and then we had lack of communication about when to put him back in.”
One of the more interesting lines from Rapoport’s 23-minute conversation with Meyer came when the coach discussed how the game has changed, especially at the college level. He said that football has become a “fragile” profession, an interesting choice of words for a coach who was fired for borderline abusive behavior.
“I think college has changed quite a bit, too,” Meyer said. “Just society has changed. You think how hard you pushed. … I believe there is greatness in everybody and it’s the coach’s job to find that greatness however you do that. Positive encouragement. Pushing them to be greater, making them work harder, identifying flaws and trying to fix [them]. I think everything is so fragile right now. And that includes coaching staffs. When I got into coaching, coaches weren’t making this kind of money and they didn’t have agents. Everything is so fragile where it used to be team, team, team. I remember talking about it in a staff meeting three days ago. I got into this profession because I had the greatest high school coach and it was all about team. All about the huddle.”
Meyer interestingly outlines here why college programs may not be trampling over each other to land his services this time around. Even if Meyer wanted to return to college coaching, it’s clear that his approach comes from a bygone era, and he wasn’t able to adjust his style well to the NFL.
With name, image and likeness and expanded transfer rights, college football players have more agency than ever before, and based on the way things played out in Jacksonville, it seems fair to say that Meyer does not handle players with agency very well.
The Jags are moving on now and will look to rebuild from scratch twice in two years. Whoever the next coach is will inherit a talented quarterback in Trevor Lawrence and a lot of cap space, so it’s still an attractive opening in many ways. But for now, the Jags will try to find anything to build on in these final four games under interim coach Darrell Bevell.