In what will go down as one of the more predictable disasters in NFL history, there are still more stories being leaked out about how ridiculous Urban Meyer was during his brief stint as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. There was a story recently revealed by Tyler Dunne that shows us just how absurd the former Ohio State head coach was when he was in the NFL. After they lost to the Seattle Seahawks 31-7, the Jags fell to 1-6 on the season. The Jacksonville defense held an important meeting and the players decided to chime in on what they thought needed to change. Jags’ safety Andrew Wingard chimed in why he thought the team was struggling. What were his thoughts? “The Jaguars had a rookie quarterback in Trevor Lawrence, a rookie head coach (Urban Meyer), and it was on the defense to help the team out.”
It seemed like a pretty mild comment and let’s be honest here–it was an indisuptable fact that Meyer had never coached a single down in the National Football League before. Word got back to Meyer and he was furious.
Here’s the clip of the story below in the tweet, but it’ll be written out below the tweet in case you wanted to see it there as well.
“That Monday night, the safety’s phone rang. Caller ID indicated that position coach, Chris Ash, was calling. Wingard answered and….a different voice greeted him. It was Meyer,” Dunne wrote.
“He says, ‘Dewey, why the hell did you call me a rookie head coach? Tell me why. If it was anybody else right now, you’d already be cut,” Wingard relives. “Explain yourself to me is essentially what he said. So I had to freaking safe face and tell him how much I love him and how he’s the greatest coach ever….You’re sitting there on your off-night chilling and you get a call from your head coach: ‘Hey, I’m going to cut you if you don’t apologize for calling me a rookie head coach,’” Dunne continued.
“The threat was real. If Wingard didn’t apologize, he was toast,” Dunne noted.
It certainly seems like one of the thinnest skinned moves an NFL head coach has ever made. Wingard’s comment was not only true, but also very tame.
But the reaction is far from surprising. Considering Meyer only lasted 13 games and the franchise had a 2-11 record when he was canned, not much is surprising about his disaster of a stint in Jacksonville.
It was crystal clear his coaching style would not work out in the NFL.
Meyer joined elite company as a college football head coach
Meyer is one of only two coaches to win a national championship with two different schools in college football. Ironically enough, he joined his bitter rival on the list, Nick Saban. Meyer did it at Florida twice and once with Ohio State. Saban won one at LSU and he’s won six so far with the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Meyer was also involved in the production of the Netflix documentary, “Swamp Kings”, which is set to be released on August 23rd.
