Things haven’t been going particularly well on the field for the Jacksonville Jaguars. The team has gotten off to an 0-4 start this season, with their most recent loss coming last Thursday to the Cincinnati Bengals. But in recent days, all of the attention has been on the actions of head coach Urban Meyer, who stayed in Ohio and traveled to his old stomping ground of Columbus after the team flew back to Florida and was caught with a woman who isn’t his wife dancing close to his lap.
Meyer issued up an apology at his weekly press conference on Monday, while there have been high-profile calls for him to lose his job. And on Tuesday, veteran NFL reporter Mike Silver brought word that the situation in Jacksonville is reaching the point of being untenable.
THREAD 1) The Urban Meyer situation in Jacksonville has reached a crisis point, especially in the locker room. One player told me, ‘He has zero credibility in that stadium. He had very little to begin with.’
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) October 5, 2021
Silver went on to report on how Meyer handled this with his players, and apparently, he wasn’t exactly convincing with his explanation of how things went.
2) Players were particularly put off by the fact that Meyer canceled Monday’s team meeting, as he dealt with the uproar over the videos of him and a young woman getting cozy in that Ohio bar. ‘He even canceled the team meeting. He was too scared,’ a player said.
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) October 5, 2021
3) Instead Meyer ‘only apologized to position groups individually.’ He portrayed the woman in the videos as a random person who was ‘just there dancing.’ Suffice it to say, his audience was highly skeptical.
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) October 5, 2021
4) Said one player: ‘We looked at him like, WTF? Right when he left everyone started dying laughing. And he knew it.’
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) October 5, 2021
Shortly after this report, Jaguars owner Shad Khan released a statement on the matter. While he appreciated Meyer for his explanation of what happened, he went on to say that the team’s coach “must regain our trust and respect.”
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) October 5, 2021
The Jaguars are scheduled to play host to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. They will then pack their bags and head to London for a game against the Miami Dolphins before their bye week.