What did Urban Meyer say to Jaguars players during team meeting?
Urban Meyer has been in the headlines for about a week now and for all of the wrong reasons. After the Jacksonville Jaguars' fourth consecutive loss at the 2021 NFL season against the Cincinnati Bengals, he remained in Ohio rather than returning to Florida with the rest of the team. An embarrassing video of him out at a bar surfaced and quickly went viral on social media.
He was caught with a woman dancing against him at a bar, who was not his wife. What made things even worse was that while the rest of the team was going back to work after another loss, Urban Meyer instead went out partying. This rubbed the team the wrong way, which is understandable. He was being a distraction to the team rather than a leader in tough times.
I kinda wonder something: Do fans recognize how incredibly unusual it was for Urban Meyer to not fly home with the team last week? Like, in 16 years on the NFL beat, I can’t recall a situation remotely similar.
That alone blew my mind.
Urban Meyer apologizes to Jaguars players
Urban Meyer publicly admitted that he was embarrassed by his behavior, for both his football team and his family. There were reports that Urban Meyer had already completely lost the locker room, and that he even failed in his first attempt to apologize directly to the team. He made a more serious effort Wednesday morning by calling a team meeting to address the situation.
Urban Meyer was reportedly honest and remorseful in his speech to the team. For the health of the Jaguars' future, the players need to trust their head coach. In particular, rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence. The relationship between quarterback and head coach is very important when developing a young quarterback. It's critical that they resolve this immediately.
From @GMFB: #Jaguars coach Urban Meyer addressed his team this morning. A breakdown of what he said 👇👇👇 https://t.co/0RiFYWoaLG
It was the first NFL head coaching job for Urban Meyer, who made his mark in the college ranks as one of the greatest coaches of all time at that level. His success is legendary, including at enormous programs such Ohio State University and the University of Florida. His name had been rumored around NFL head coaching vacancies for years until he finally took the Jacksonville Jaguars job.
This is not a good start to his first experience as an NFL head coach. The job title is the same, but being a head coach in college is not the same thing as the NFL. The overall responsibilities are different. If Urban Meyer can't repair his relationship with the team, and especially Trevor Lawrence, his run as an NFL head coach could be a very short one.