Shad Khan should have interviewed and hired Byron Leftwich last year

Shad Khan had a chance to interview Leftwich but chose Urban Meyer instead.

You could make the case Khan had already made up his mind he wanted to hire Meyer and nobody should blame him. After all, he won everywhere he had gone and was one of the winningest head coaches in college football. Having said that, the Jaguars’ owner should have paid attention to the red flags that followed him throughout his career.

Back at Florida, players were arrested at a high rate and allegedly had them cover failed drug tests as injuries. Then, there was the infamous Circle of Trust, a group of players Meyer cuddled and favored during his tenure as the head coach of the Gators.

Things weren’t much better at Ohio State, where Meyer knew of assistant Zach Smith’s history of domestic abuse and didn’t do anything about it. The controversy didn’t stop when the head coach made the leap to the pros and from the very beginning, he began to make a series of dubious choices, including the hire of Chris Doyle to lead their sports performance.

Looking back, Khan misjudged Meyer’s character and didn’t vet him the way he should have. On the contrary, Leftwich is well-respected around the league record and you will often hear his peers speak highly of him. He’s one of the NFL’s rising stars among the head coaching ranks and he could have been the Jaguars head coach earlier this year.

Shad Khan will have another chance to interview Leftwich as soon as Monday and if he is everything Meyer was supposed to be but wasn’t he shouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger and sign him.