The Urban Meyer experiment with the Jacksonville Jaguars has gotten off to a rough start on the field. Those concerns have taken a back seat to some questionable conduct off of it.
Meyer, hired to establish a championship culture for the long-struggling Jags franchise, has often been a gruff, no-nonsense coach, though a number of players that went through his college programs, especially Florida, managed to get into plenty of trouble under his watch. Now, Meyer find himself under that sort of scrutiny.
Over the weekend, photos and videos of Meyer at a bar surfaced, in which he was spotted getting very familiar with some young women. His wife Shelley reacted via Twitter, adding fuel to the fire. On Monday, Meyer released a statement apologizing for the situation and for being a distraction.
Per reports, the Jags are taking this infraction very seriously. Michael Lombardi, a former NFL front office pro, says that there have been “many closed door meetings” around the franchise, indicating that they’re about the Urban Meyer situation.
According to two Jacksonville sources, there are many closed-door meetings happening over the last two days in the football offices and none of them have anything to do with the Titans. Stay tuned. This might get ugly.
— Michael Lombardi (@mlombardiNFL) October 5, 2021
Michael McCann, a legal analyst for Sportico, indicates that Meyer could run afoul of a “moral clause” in his contract, and the team could look to fire him for cause.
Two employment contract terms might become tied to this development with the Jacksonville Jaguars — “morals clause” and “for cause”. https://t.co/2GztYKDbj3
— Michael McCann (@McCannSportsLaw) October 5, 2021
At 0-4, the Jaguars are one of two winless NFL teams at this point in the season. The team’s on field struggles really aren’t a surprise—-the franchise was seen a a full-scale rebuild when it landed the No. 1 pick, hired Meyer, and drafter Trevor Lawrence.
Meyer has been in plenty of hot water before, but it has come amid one of the great college coaching careers of all time. He doesn’t carry that same gravitas in the NFL, and no matter what, the images that came out from his bar night are deeply embarrassing, especially on the heels of a tough loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday night.
It would still be a real surprise to see Meyer fired at this point, but his first NFL job is trending in a very bad direction.
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