Urban Meyer has already proven that he’s a habitual liar. It’s the reason why he isn’t at Ohio State anymore. But this week, we found out that lying isn’t his issue. It’s that he doesn’t know when to do it.
The NFLPA has opened an investigation because Meyer – for once – told the truth at a time in which he should have fudged it– like usual. On Tuesday, Meyer said that he and the Jaguars’ general manager Trent Baalke considered a player’s vaccination status as they were making roster cuts.
“Everyone was considered,” Meyer said. “That was part of the [considerations such as] production, let’s start talking about this, and also is he vaccinated or not? Can I say that that was a decision-maker? It was certainly in consideration.”
Meyer didn’t realize that he couldn’t do that, as a rare moment of transparency got him in trouble as the NFLPA is looking into the matter.
This is one of those situations in which Meyer was trying to do the right thing, but he went about it the wrong way. For instance, when the Falcons became the first team to get to a 100 percent vaccination rate, it was because they cut two players that were unvaccinated – unlike Meyer, they didn’t talk about it in a press conference. And when Bill Belichick was asked if Cam Newton’s vaccination status led to his tenure in New England coming to an end – the man in the hoodie kept it simple.
“No.”
By Wednesday, the Jaguars had released a statement in efforts to save face and clean up Meyer’s mess – an act they’ll surely be doing all season.
The Jaguars hired Meyer in January and he’s already got several blunders on his resume. Below is a list of some of the head-scratching moments that have taken place over the last nine months.
February: Meyer hired former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle to serve as the Jaguars’ director of sports performance even though he got run out of the University of Iowa for doing a lot of really racist things for decades. Meyer said Doyle had been “vetted thoroughly.” A few days later Doyle was gone.
May: Meyer signs Tim Tebow to play a position he’s never played (tight end) after not playing in an NFL regular-season game since 2012.
July: The Jaguars were fined $200,000 and Meyer was fined $100,000 for organized team activities violations. This isn’t college. You just can’t practice whenever you want to and label it as a “workout.”
July: After already being fined for having illegal workouts, Jimmy Johnson revealed that Meyer was upset with finally having to adhere to the rules that every other team has to. “He’s a little frustrated right now because he’s spent so little time with the players,” said Johnson.
“He’s accustomed to being around the players all the time, and they weren’t able to do that because of COVID-19.”
August: Meyer releases Tebow in the first round of cuts.
August, again: Reports came out of Jacksonville claiming that some players “aren’t thrilled” with how Meyer runs things, as he hasn’t realized that these are grown men that make more money than him, not college kids.
“He’s got to change a few things. He brought a bunch of college-like things. to the program, which I don’t necessarily agree with,” said CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco. “And I’ve heard some of the players aren’t thrilled with him either, including having a microphone on the field, one of his assistants on the field during practice with a boom mic, telling everybody to hydrate and hustle and get to the next period.
“So, obviously he’s a work in progress. He’s been a good football coach everywhere he’s been. It’s a lot different when you recruit guys to your school and have a bunch of the top players, the five-stars, than it is trying to build something. So, it’s going to be a challenge. I’m not giving up on what he can do in his first two games. I don’t think that’s fair to him. I don’t think it’s fair to the quarterback. But they’re not off to a good start.”
August, thrice: After making it seem like there was a true battle for QB1 between No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence and Gardner Minshew, Meyer traded away a solid backup in Minshew for draft picks, leaving the Jaguars with the talents of C.J. Beathard to lean on if anything happens to Lawrence.
During Tuesday night’s episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks, the microphones picked up a short conversation between Meyer and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, as he asked him how the transition was going.
“It’s all football. I haven’t made a recruiting call. I haven’t had to check classes,” he said.
Even Urban Meyer admits that his workload has decreased, and yet, he’s still f*cking up. Jacksonville, you’re on the clock – again.
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
