Tough Crowd
Jaguars players reportedly laughed in Urban Meyer’s face when he tried apologizing for his latest controversy
By now, there’s not a football literate soul on earth who isn’t aware of the Urban Meyer crisis brewing in Duval. After weeks of speculation that Meyer might duck and run after just a couple games to take the vacant USC position, the tables turned this weekend when Meyer was spotted in an Ohio bar “dancing” with a much younger woman who was most definitely not named Shelley Meyer. Combined with the Jaguars’ 0-4 record to start the season, Meyer is now officially on the hot seat, with rumors swirling Tuesday that he was on the brink of a being fired. Ultimately Meyer survived by the skin of his teeth, but the statement from Jaguars owner Shad Khan made it clear he was about as close as you can get to being sh*tcanned without actually being sh*tcanned.
Yet somehow the suggestion that Meyer has sunk so low he now has to earn the respect of THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS is not even the most damning part of the saga. Instead it’s this account of Meyers’ apology to Jaguars players, which may be one the most brutally honest leaks to ever come out of an NFL locker room.
“Zero credibility in that stadium.” “He was too scared.” “We looked at him like WTF?” “When he left, everyone started dying laughing.” Those are not the kind of things you say about a guy who you A. respect, even slightly, and B. expect to be your boss for very much longer.
All that said, NFL head coaches have done much, much worse than Meyer over the years (go read up on Jay Gruden, kiddos) with nary a peep from the media, let alone their own team. But Urban Meyer is Urban Meyer and karma is nothing if not a you-know-what. Football sees this as his long-overdue comeuppance and has piled on accordingly and it’s hard to say he didn’t have it coming … well, unless you’re a Trojans fan.