NFL Offseason Thread

Rich stay rich

 

Oh shiii….

Kaaron not gonna be happy.

Also, someone gonna have to finish 3rd and 4th in that division

 

RIP

 

‘The most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of’: Inside Urban Meyer’s disastrous year with Jaguars

Spoiler

Urban Meyer burst into a room full of players at the Jaguars’ facility. He was furious.

One of his players had missed an assignment during a preseason game, leading to a busted play. Meyer was enraged when it happened. A day later, he was still fuming. If the mistake ever happened again, Meyer warned, he would cut every single one of them.

“And do you know what would happen if I cut you guys?” Meyer said, according to four people in the room. “You couldn’t get a job paying more than $15 an hour.”

The implication that his players were capable of little more than playing football left some angry, others offended. “I lost all respect for him after that,” a veteran player in the room said.

Meyer arrived in Jacksonville with a mixed resume. He had won national championships at Florida and Ohio State, but he brought plenty of baggage, ranging from harsh treatment of players and staff to mishandling domestic-abuse allegations levied against one of his longest-tenured assistants, Zach Smith.

Friends and family over the years have labeled Meyer a control freak and perfectionist, and as he climbed the ranks he developed a reputation as a tough, obsessive win-at-all-costs coach who, by his own admission, was “addicted” to victory. But according to coaches, players and staff in Jacksonville, Meyer crossed the line from tough and demanding to belittling, demeaning and leading by fear.

“The most toxic environment I’ve ever been a part of,” a veteran member of the football operations staff said. “By far. Not even close.”

Receiver D.J. Chark, who signed with the Lions last week after spending the first four years of his career with the Jaguars, said Meyer routinely threatened to fire coaches and cut players. “He feels like threats are what motivates,” Chark said. “I know he would come up to us and tell us if the receivers weren’t doing good, he wasn’t going to fire us, he was going to fire our coach. He would usually say that when the coach was around.”

Kicker Josh Lambo said last year Meyer kicked him during warmups — a fact Meyer’s lawyers reportedly conceded to Rick Stroud, the reporter who broke the story for the Tampa Bay Times. Lambo believed Meyer’s kick was an act of “intimidation,” a theme echoed by several people in the organization. One player described the year with Meyer as “mentally exhausting.”

The Jaguars replaced Meyer with former Super Bowl-winning head coach Doug Pederson in early February, but some who experienced Meyer’s brand of leadership want a fuller public accounting of his tenure. Meyer’s attorney said his client would not comment for this story.

Signs of dysfunction were apparent early on. Several sources said Meyer stepped into the job as if he had all the answers, even though he had never coached in the NFL.

Meyer said he conducted a six-month deep dive on the NFL that included interviews with his former Florida and Ohio State players as well as a study of the salary cap. But multiple sources said Meyer was unfamiliar with star players around the league, including 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel, Seahawks safety Jamal Adams and Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, a three-time NFL defensive player of the year.

“Who’s this 99 guy on the Rams?” Meyer asked one staffer during the season, according to a source. “I’m hearing he might be a problem for us.”

In his first staff meeting, Meyer criticized the way NFL teams operate, noting specifically that coaches failed to take proper care of players’ health. And then, according to multiple sources in the meeting, Meyer said: “I hate scouts. Scouts are lazy.” It was an especially jarring comment given that scouts were also in the room.

Chark said the year began with optimism; Jacksonville’s players turned out in high numbers for voluntary workouts, eager for the new season under Meyer. “But the way he was running the ship, it was impossible to succeed,” Chark said.

In training camp, Meyer pushed for live contact drills despite objections from veteran coaches. One of those drills fell on what Meyer called “Winner and Loser” days; two players would compete, and the winner would be announced over the loudspeaker. After one blocking drill, Meyer insisted Chark do extra reps; the receiver suffered a broken finger, underwent surgery and missed the preseason.

Meyer also forbade players from speaking with opponents on the field before games, once claimed the Jaguars lost because they dressed sloppily and told offensive players he wanted them to dunk the ball over the goalpost after touchdowns even though doing so would draw a fine from the league. But more than Meyer’s coaching quirks, the way he treated people particularly troubled some in the organization.

Not long after veteran receiver John Brown signed with the Jaguars as a free agent, he ran the wrong route in practice. To correct the mistake, Brown, who is from Florida, and rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence ran through the route again after practice. Meyer walked up to the pair.

“Hey, Trevor, you’ve got to slow it down for him,” Meyer said, according to sources. “These boys from the South, their transcripts ain’t right.”

Another time, during a meeting that also included members of the coaching and personnel staffs, Meyer berated a player so harshly that the player cried. According to two sources, Meyer slammed the door after departing the meeting, leaving others to console the player. The next day, one of the other staff members present confronted Meyer about the incident in what one source described as a tense exchange.

 

Spoiler

Sources said Meyer repeatedly belittled his staff to its members’ faces. He told his assistants he was a winner and they were losers, then demanded they defend their resumes. One player said it was coaches often looked “drained” whenever they left staff meetings with Meyer.

“The players got it bad when it came to him talking to us,” a veteran player said, “but I believe the coaches got it worse.”

“You’ve got players in fear that they’re going to lose their jobs,” Chark said. “You’ve got coaches who he belittled in front of us, and I can only imagine what he was doing behind closed doors. I’m surprised he lasted that long, to be honest with you.”

The most notorious incident of Meyer’s tenure came in late September when Jacksonville played a Thursday night game in Cincinnati. The Jaguars lost to the Bengals, 24-21, their fourth straight defeat. After the season opener, Meyer had confidently told his team he had never lost two in a row. But after the Cincinnati loss, one source said Meyer looked “shellshocked” in the locker room. He told players he had nothing to say.

Neither coaches nor players, however, realized that Meyer didn’t board the team flight that night. It wasn’t until a video emerged over the weekend showing Meyer dancing with a young woman in his Ohio steakhouse that players and coaches learned he had stayed behind. Multiple sources said Meyer went from position group to position group telling players that the woman in the video tried to lure him onto the dance floor despite Meyer’s refusal. But according to two sources, soon after he left one position group, a second, more provocative video became public, throwing everything Meyer said in doubt.

In late November, Meyer told reporters that receivers were running the wrong routes. As NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported, the comment so enraged veteran receiver Marvin Jones that Jones left the team facility. He eventually confronted Meyer at practice but was diplomatic when he spoke to reporters about the incident.

“I’ll just say this: There was something that was brought to my attention that I didn’t like too well,” Jones said.

Once again, Meyer met with players and denied he made the comment about the receivers, even though, according to a source, a player in the room had video of Meyer’s press conference pulled up on his phone.

Meyer’s grip on the team continued to slip. In a December game against the Rams, second-year running back James Robinson fumbled on the opening possession, the second straight week in which he had fumbled.

“Get him out,” Meyer told his coaches during the game, according to two sources. “He’s done. Put Carlos Hyde in. He’s not playing anymore.”

Robinson did not touch the ball again for 26 plays but late in the game was put back in for three carries in garbage time despite the Jaguars trailing by 30 points.

“I’m not sure what the point of that was,” Robinson, who was dealing with injuries in the week leading up to the game, said later.

The decision also confused Lawrence, the 2021 No. 1 pick, who said he discussed the situation with Meyer and the coaching staff. “Bottom line is James is one of our best players, and he’s got to be on the field and we addressed it,” Lawrence said.

Behind the scenes, the Robinson situation was even more divisive. After the game, Meyer told reporters he wasn’t aware of Robinson’s extended absence and put the benching on Robinson’s position coach, Bernie Parmalee.

“You’d have to ask Bernie,” Meyer said. “I don’t get too involved. I don’t micromanage that.”

In a staff meeting the next morning, according to multiple sources, Meyer denied ever telling his coaches to bench Robinson. He said his assistants had misinterpreted him.

“I feel like he put us in very bad positions and, when the questions came, he deferred the responsibility, which made it look like we were just out there being the worst team in the league,” Chark said. “But we weren’t put in position (to succeed).”

Chark and others agreed that Meyer hampered players, most notably Lawrence. “Trevor is a great quarterback,” Chark said. “He was not put in good positions.

“He told us from day one that he was going to maximize our value,” Chark added. “And I truly can’t tell you one player that maximized their value on the Jags this year.”

Meyer was fired for cause on Dec. 15, shortly after Lambo, the Jaguars kicker, accused Meyer of kicking him during warmups and saying, “Hey dipshit, make your ****ing kicks.” Meyer admitted in an interview with Dan Dakich that he made contact with Lambo but denied kicking him.

Meyer, who still had four years left on his contract, seemed to blame his behavior on losing. It “eats away at your soul,” he told Dakich and said he “went through that whole depression thing to where I’d stare at the ceilings.”

On the day Meyer was fired, a veteran player on the Jaguars said the mood around the team was strange. Instead of the disappointment or concern that often accompanies a coach losing his job, the player sensed something else: relief.