Meyer-Jags experiment has more skeptics than believers
The Houston Texans were the laughingstock of the NFL offseason. Then they opened the regular season by blowing out the Jacksonville Jaguars and officially passed the baton.
Urban Meyer’s grand Florida experiment is threatening to collapse in fantastic fashion. The Jaguars were 1-15 last season and this year actually looks worse.
Meyer’s discomfort with the NFL is so evident — and his reputation for double talk is so entrenched — that his name began trending on social media the second USC fired head coach Clay Helton last Monday.
Few bought Meyer’s half-hearted refutation of reports and rumors that he might jet for Southern California, either.
“No chance,” Meyer said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking down to avert eye contact. “I’m here, committed to try to build an organization.”
The reality, however, is that there is widespread skepticism of Meyer, 57, and his desire and ability to stick it out in the pros. Meyer has fueled all of it himself.
Some of Jacksonville’s players reportedly “aren’t thrilled” with some of Meyer’s methods,
per CBS Sports, and he’s rubbing both coaches and players on his team “the wrong way.”
Denver Broncos defensive end Dre’Mont Jones, who played for Meyer at Ohio State, laughed when asked if he was surprised that NFL veterans might bristle at his former college coach.
“Am I surprised by it? No,” Jones said with a chuckle. “Why? I just know how he is. I’m not gonna go into any great detail about it. But it doesn’t surprise me.”
“A lot of his philosophies were [primarily] college-based, and you can’t do that with 30-plus men or even 25-plus men who’ve been around the league,” Jones added. “They know what they’re doing now and they’re well established. So you gotta shake things up with how you coach.”
After a preseason loss to the Browns, Meyer publicly complained about his own assistant coaches keeping their play calls too vanilla. Airing out assistant coaches to the media is a good way to create some anonymous sources who won’t mind spilling dirt.
“I think sometimes coaches [say], ‘We can’t show this, we can’t show that,’” Meyer said. “And I’m like, ‘Why? Tell me. Explain to me why.”
So Meyer reportedly has had “repeated issues” with coaches on his staff and there is a “disconnect” among coaches on his staff with pro experience and those who only know college, per CBS. A source also told CBS that Meyer’s temper “has everyone looking over their shoulders” and that he “becomes unhinged way too easily.”
Then there was former NFL GM Michael Lombardi’s tweet that “there is something brewing” after the USC firing and that his sources in Columbus, Ohio, say Meyer “might love going back to college.”
It makes sense why he would, too: College athletes’ ability to rake in endorsement money under the NCAA’s new Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) has completely shifted the recruiting landscape.