Jaguars WR Marvin Jones acknowledges what everyone knew about Urban Meyer

Urban Meyer needed less than a year to turn the Jacksonville Jaguars upside down. But following one of the most taxing seasons in franchise history, the Jags have advanced to the playoffs and won the AFC South title. This kind of turnaround is rare in the NFL and wide receiver Marvin Jones Jr. pulled no punches when talking about the man that held the team back in 2021.

After the Jacksonville 20-13 win over the Tennessee Titans in Week 18, Jones opened up about last season. Regarding the perception that the Jags were broken, the veteran receiver said, “one man was broken and it wasn’t us”, per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN. That’s without a doubt a shot fired at Meyer.

Owner Shad Khan aggressively courted Meyer to fill the head-coach vacancy left by Doug Marrone without doing the necessary research. Khan was mesmerized by Meyer’s ability to turn college programs around but never stopped to wonder if that kind of approach would work in the NFL. He didn’t need much time to find out though.

Right off the bat, Meyer hired a person that had no business coaching players as the director of sports performance. After the deserved backlash, this coach quietly resigned quietly. Meyer lied about having worked with him in the past and failed to take accountability for the questionable hiring. That was just the beginning of what was going to be a tenure full of lies, threats, and a failure to take accountability. Khan decided he had seen enough by December 2021 and fired Meyer.

The Jaguars success in 2022 shows how bad Urban Meyer was in 2021

This isn’t the first time Marvin Jones opens up about Meyer. Back in October, he said he knew the Meyer experience wasn’t going to work by training and cited a lack of transparency and not being truthful as reasons for his failed tenure.

Conversely, head coach Doug Pederson has often talked about being a straight shooter and transparent. Who would have thought that treating players like people and not props would lead to success? Coincidentally, Pederson talked about having to earn the team’s trust after the win over Tennessee:

“What was needed was trust”, Pederson said. “Trust was broken with this team. When I took the job, that’s why I had to regain their trust as a coach. It’s not an overnight fix, I said it back then. It’s gonna take a process. It’s going to take a journey, and I think they saw right away that they can trust in me, I can trust in them”.

“And one of the things I’m always going to do is shoot them straight and be honest with them. The transparency is key, the communication is key. And I think we just build over time that trust factor, and it’ll show throughout the course of the year, and I think that’s why we hung together”, Pederson said.

What’s bemusing is that Pederson took the Jaguars to the playoffs with pretty much the same roster Meyer had in 2021. Sure, the Jags added players such as wide receiver Christian Kirk and Zay Jones this season but there were many that were on the team last year. Simply, Meyer wasn’t capable of coaching.

Looking back, Shad Khan made a horrible decision when he hired Meyer. On the bright side, he was able to make up for his mistake when he hired Pederson and the contrast between the two head coaches could be more evident after the Jaguars’ massive turnaround in 2022.