Urban Meyer’s stench lingers over Jacksonville Jaguars

Even though the Jacksonville Jaguars fired Urban Meyer in December, the ramifications of his failed stint and the toxic enviroment he fostered are still felt in Jacksonville. Former kicker Josh Lambo has filed a suit against the Jaguars, claiming emotional distress and seeking his his full salary from the 2021 season, per Rick Stroud of Tampa Bay Times.

Last December, Lambo said that Meyer kicked him during pre-game workouts, and talked to him in a derrogatory way. The head coach was promtly fired when the allegations became public.

"I’m in a lunge position. Left leg forward, right leg back… Urban Meyer, while I’m that streth position, comes up to me and says, ‘Hey [expletive], make your [expletive] kicks! And kicks me in the leg."

The lawsuit state that Lambo’s agent, Richard Irving, contacted the organization’s legal councel after the incident but he claims that he has “no recollection of being able to speak with the Jag’s legal team“. The Jaguars said that they did ineed gave the kicker the chance to meet with them and any “suggestion otherwise” is false.

Urban Meyer always got the spotlight for the wrong reasons.

Meyer claims he never hit Lambo but then again, he hasn’t held himself accountable for any of the blunders he was responsible for during his time in Jacksoville. When he was caught dancing improperly with a young woman, he blamed a group of fans that wanted to take pictures with him and join them on the dancefloor despite the fact that there was video evidence of the incident.

Similarly, Meyer denied ordering the benching of running back James Robinson but instead blamed position coach Bernie Parmalee. These are just of several  occurence Jaguars players and members of the coaching staff had to endure in 2021. This is to say that Meyer hasn’t been particularly upfront at how things unfolded during his tenure as the head coach.

The problem is that owner Shad Khan and the organization saw everything that was going on but didn’t intervene. They acted only when Lambo went public but reports about Meyer antagonizing his staff and not having the right attitude to coach had already surfaced. Now, the Jags have to reap what they sowed.

The Jaguars have nobody to blame but themselves for the Urban Meyer fiasco

You could make the case that the Jaguars did too little too late and now have to deal with the stain of being slapped with a lawsuit. On the bright side, they’ve tried to make signficant changes to the way the team is run and hired Doug Pederson to take Meyer’s place and you can easily see that there’s a day and night difference between him and his predecesor.

Being a former NFL player himself, Pederson knows how to build a rapport with his players and convey his message. Meanwhile, Meyer wanted everyone to adjust to his ways and no the other way around. That kind approach might have helped him at the collegiate level but doesn’t work in the pros, where coaches have to work with fully-developed adults.

Hopefully, the Jaguars and Lambo can work things over, so they can fully move on from one of the worst years in franchise history.