There is an old saying in sports, “you can only fire the coach and not the roster”, Urban Meyer learned that full well 5 days ago when he was fired from his position as coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Meyer, who only a week ago was one of the NFL’s highest paid coaches, led his team to a pitiful 2-11 record.
In an interview the now ex-coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars did little to shoulder the blame but rather pointed it at the players and his coaches. Meyer told NFL Network, “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.”
Meyer continued during the interview to point out how losing just took control of the team, “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.”
Urban Meyer comments after being fired from Jacksonville Jaguars
Urban Meyer of the Jacksonville Jaguars looks on during the third quarter against the Los Angeles Rams (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Meyer was fired for cause, and during the interview apologized to the city of Jacksonville for the poor run of form his team had. “I just apologize to Jacksonville… 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 denied any accusations that were made against him in his final weeks as coach as well as the benching of star running back James Robinson. Meyer, who lost more games this season than Jacksonville had lost in 4 seasons, got a lot of unwanted media attention in October when after a defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals the coach did not fly back with his team, citing “he went to visit family”, only for photographs and videos to surface of the coach dancing with a young woman at a bar.
Trevor Lawrence stated to ESPN that Meyer’s firing”brings a little bit of clarity to the guys in the locker room. I wouldn’t say relief, but I would say just bring some clarity and some direction moving forward.” It was reportedLawrence and other players were unhappy with Meyer’s attitude and coaching.
