Despite signing a five-year contract to coach the Jaguars out of mediocrity, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that, after only eleven months, Urban Meyer is no longer the head coach in Jacksonville. Urban had a bit of a rocky debut season in the NFL, going a paltry 2-11 in a year full of controversy. The firing comes a little over a month after Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan was reportedly “all in” on the first-year head coach. 
Meyer was a headline hire for Jacksonville, replacing Doug Marrone as head coach shortly after the Jaguars had secured the worst record in the 2020 NFL season. Meyer had shown his abilities as an accomplished coach in the college ranks, winning three national titles between his years in Gainesville and Columbus. The value of his five-year deal was never officially confirmed, but reports claimed that Meyer was asking for $12MM annually, which would have made him the second-highest paid coach in the NFL under Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichek.
The Meyer-era didn’t take long before showing it’s sour potential. In July, the Jaguars were one of three teams penalized for violating the CBA rules for offseason workouts. The Jaguars were fined a nominal $200K and Meyer was handed a $100K fine, as well. Not two weeks later, Meyer was subpoenaed by the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Iowa in relation to Chris Doyle, the former University of Iowa strength coach who left the school to join Meyer’s staff in Jacksonville. Doyle was the subject of a $20MM racial discrimination civil lawsuit filed by eight former Iowa players. The hiring of Doyle, itself, had created a slew of backlash. Meyer drew yet another offseason headline with comments that COVID-19 vaccination statuses were being considered when trimming the team’s roster down to 53 players, leading to an investigation by the NFLPA.
In October, Meyer once again found himself under fire after a viral video surfaced showing him with a young woman at his restaurant in Columbus. The Jaguars had just played a Thursday night game in Cincinnati. After the loss to the Bengals, Meyer didn’t fly back to Florida with the team, electing to stay in Ohio to visit family. Meyer claimed he had gone with family members to the restaurant where the viral video had been recorded. He spent the following Monday apologizing to the team, his family, and Khan.
Since then, there have been several reports of discontent within the Jaguars’ organization, with the most recent coming from kicker Josh Lambo who spoke about a preseason incident in which the Jaguars’ coach kicked Lambo while he was stretching. From continuous rumors that Meyer could have interest in open college coaching jobs to expectations that Meyer would fire the entire staff at the end of the season, it’s safe to say that the Meyer-Jacksonville partnership has not gone according to plan.
Ian Rapoport, of NFL Network, was quick to follow Schefter in tweeting that, with Meyer out, offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell will serve as head coach in an interim capacity. Bevell is in his 21st year of coaching in the NFL, with previous stints as the quarterbacks coach in Green Bay and the offensive coordinator in Minnesota, Seattle, and Detroit. Bevell actually has experience as an interim head coach, having led the Detroit Lions to a 1-4 finish following the firing of then-head coach Matt Patricia just last year. The Jaguars’ offense has struggled under Bevell with a rookie quarterback and an identical offensive line to the line from 2020 that helped Jacksonville earn the number one overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. They currently rank 30th in total offense and 31st in scoring offense.
Bevell should have a soft opening term as interim coach in Jacksonville, with matchups against the Texans and Jets, before finishing the season with the Patriots and Colts. Meanwhile, we’ll have to wait and see just how genuine the college interest in Meyer was as the mired coach navigates the aftermath of a tumultuous 2021 campaign.
Which college team will pick him up lol drop your predictions below
Only temple has an opening … I think. Lol enjoy temple, urban!
keep him the hell away from my Owls
Go Owls!
Heck yeah! Fight fight fight for the cherry & white!!
also, we hired stan drayton yesterday
Ducks
Coach Dan Lanning
He’ll wait a year and texass will hire him.
He’ll need at least 2 years out of coaching to “recover” from this physically and emotionally draining experience (transition: time for people to forget this disaster).
Fox will hire him as a college analyst. Or maybe ESPN this time, to co-host whatever the name of the unwatchable Stevie Ray Smith show is this month.
No 2nd chances, huh? Guess ownership was expecting miracles in one single season…
Did you miss his constant stupidity? Urban Meyer is likely the first coach in professional sports history to take over a 1-15 team and actually make them worse
Huge ack, son
Has nothing to do with on field results. He’s displayed he is not an NFL head coach through his actions and lack of professionalism.
Oh, but it does. Do you think if the Jags were 11-2 instead of 2-11 he would’ve been fired? If you win in the NFL, you can be an axe murderer and keep you job.
Please name one NFL head coach where the type of situation you describe is the case…
He’s a megalomaniac and has no feel for the professional game.
Sean Peyton comes to mind right away. His team was head hunting and trying to hurt people intentionally. Being bribed by the coaches to do so. I’d say there’s your one example of a coach who would have gotten fired if he wasn’t so successful. Might not even be in the league anymore. It goes against everything the league is trying to do now with player safety and protect its reputation for being so dangerous and not taking care of its players
Payton was not the person at fault primarily, it was Gregg Williams, who shouldn’t have ever gotten another job in the NFL. But there were three things there about the offense that saved him long term. 1-the evidence was really shaky and mostly circumstantial (moreso than, say, the deflation thing that everyone cites). 2-the actual offense was not technically against the rules. 3-in terms of saving Payton job-wise, there was no question of his commitment to the team. Payton got punished, but a key difference other than skill was that there was not a question from his employer whether or not he was committed. Not to mention, his players/staff don’t seem overtly disgruntled.
Meyer is different in every way. He has not been in Jacksonville long, he has not proven his commitment to team, his employees/players don’t like him, and there is strong evidence of at least some of transgressions (on the commitment end, his videotaped presence at the bar after a loss, and on the rules end, his admission regarding vaccination status in a public press conference). Lastly, as you said, he hasn’t proven his value on the field, either. I don’t think that I’d absolutely compare the two situations. With Payton, many people feel that he got screwed, for any of the reasons listed above. With Meyer, people feel that he got more chances than he should have.
It’s a case by case basis. Gruden hadn’t been spectacularly successful in his current run with the Raiders, but the team was doing well at the time of his firing. It was pretty damaging for issues like his homophobic comments in emails to come out while he had the first openly gay active player on his roster, but it was not at the level of bounty hunting.
Bill Belechik with his repeated history of cheating? Does this not ring a bell?
He’s an amazing coach and GM, though. He just has the winning at all costs mentality and doesn’t care about the rules.
Amazing coach yes Belicheat is. GM not soo sure about that one.
Are you really saying Belichick is a terrible and unprofessional man, the only reason he keeps his job is because he wins? Absolute nonsense.
Flip side is if you lose, you be a saint and still get fired.
Can vouch for this—have killed multiple people with an axe and I’m heading to Wild Card Weekend
My buddy who’s a Jags fan has been begging for this to happen the last few weeks. Urban is a clown who’s already on what, his 5th scandal in Jacksonville? Well past a 2nd chance. No point in wasting anymore of Trevor Lawrence on a rookie contract with an incompetent buffoon.
No second chances? The article you’re commenting on details a host of dysfunctional issues and a number of fireable offenses.
He had numerous chances
well Shad, maybe you arent as clueless as I thought.
Shad will probably replace Meyer with Nagy confirming your original thought that he is clueless.
Nagy might be worse…
This is setting the bar incredibly low, but at least Nagy made it a full season without kicking any of his players.
Should be interesting to see if he can collect the remaining ~$50M on his contract. It’s almost as if he did everything he could to get fired, yet knowingly get paid to do nothing going forward. I’m sure any job he takes will void the current contract.
I think it depends on the state laws. Florida is probably more likely to side with the owner, as opposed to if it was a liberal state. Boomer made that point on his morning radio show in NY this morning
I hope the Jags weren’t dumb enough to give him a guaranteed contract.
It’s about time. Good riddance.
I have to admit I’m impressed with Urban. He blew that job the fastest he could. Dazzling performance.
Jags got Costanza’d.
Too bad they have no trophies to drag around the parking lot. Shad should have held out a little bit longer. Could have seen Body Suit Urban.
Oh god its finally happening.
He will be coaching the guards in Longest Yard 3
Should have never been hired to begin with.
Finally. Made my week. His handling of the best player on offense, James Robinson, was reason alone. Add in all the extra drama and this was overdue.
Too bad they didn’t do this in time to stop that wasted second first round pick…
Props to Shad Khan. Anyone can make a mistake, and hiring Meyer turned out to be a huge mistake, but I was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to admit his error and would continue his habit of waiting too long to make a change. This had to be done now, bad PR or not. Now they can hopefully turn the page and get it right this time.
Bienemy or McDaniels?
McDaniels, but only if he brings back Tebow.
Yeah, like McDaniels would keep the job for longer than 24 hours before changing his mind. Yet another loser that would be a waste of time for any team that gave him the time of day
URBAN renewal in Jacksonville !!
This is a good one
Not quite since they fired an Urban, then again if they hire Keith Urban maybe…
50 million reasons why we won’t see him on the sidelines for awhile if ever again.He might not be a good NFL coach but he’s one hell of a poker player.
Four wins was all that could be expected from Jacksonville’s talent-poor roster and Mr. Ego couldn’t even deliver that. Given his history of painful behavior missteps Meyer will now probably sue Khan to get paid the remainder of his contract.
Only a douchebag would do that, so you can count on Meyer doing it
The only skill set you need to coach in college is sociopathy.
In the pros, you have to coach.
Next time the Jags should hire a coach and not a sociopath.
Ehhh I think college coaching requires more than just that, and I would argue that Meyer is much more of an insecure egomaniac than an actual sociopath, but I would agree overall that coaching in the pros usually takes more tactical and strategic skill than college. Or, at the very least, less relying on your or your school’s name to bring in blue chips and simply out-talent your opponents.
The hate for this guy is amazing. The same people have been screaming for him to be fired since the day he was hired. Anyone who expects a college coach to show up NFL ready is just stupid. Would he have been able to do it..well never know. The guy took over an absolute dumpster fire of a franchise and didn’t turn it around in the first half of a season. Most of the “scandals” listed are just silly. The Jags are a joke. This entire situation just reinforces that.
Even if all of the other stories about Meyer were untrue, you can’t kick a player. And I for one fully believe that he did, or at least that he would. That alone is a fireable offense.
Yeah, physically assaulting a player cannot happen. Reportedly it was while the guy was stretching, so he could have been even more vulnerable to being injured by Meyer’s stupidity.
Some of Meyer’s antics I didn’t see as a big deal, but he crossed a line you can’t cross. The rookie QB had become the adult and voice of sanity in the room. The situation wasn’t working and the firing was the right call.
So you believe that the fact that you believe he would kick a player is enough to get fired? Interesting take.
Footballguy5, you should be able to see literally any positive thing the guy is contributing. Even with the horrible Jets season, you can see players buying into Saleh. Meyer has been bad schematically, lost his team, and behaved badly in a number of ways. He hasn’t even behaved like an employable adult. Your defense is bizarre, and I’m not someone who thought the hire was doomed from day one.
At the $12 mil per (or whatever the deal actually ended up being) that HE asked for as someone who had never coached at the nfl level, there absolutely still should have been some type of immediate results.
The positive kind, not dancing with a woman less than half his age, or kicking a player.
Footballguy5 –
If you are attempting to defend Meyer in any way, you are the second worst person involved in this whole affair, right behind Meyer himself
lol I called it when he was hired . He not a great coach he’s a good coach that in college u bring in after u have recruited good and u want to get over the hump and push to win at any cost . then he will bring in players any top rated players and that will last a few yrs till he can’t keep up recruiting to retool and has to rebuild then he ups and leaves . He’s not good at building a team and I never thought he would be good in the NFL I figured he would fail quickly.
Kicking the kicker gets you kicked out.
Of all the reasons to get fired it’s the kicker who gets him canned. It feels like a Seinfeld bit.
George: After months of fruitless attempts I finally got fired!
Elaine: For what?
George: I kicked the kicker.
Jerry: You kicked the kicker?
George: I kicked the kicker.
Kramer: How hard?
Talk about kicking a man when he’s down…
FYI coach names will need to be updated at bottom-all say Urban Meyer.
It was a catastrophic mistake hiring him. No pun intended.
Can I get a job as a proof reader? Urban Myer is replacing Urban Myer as Head Coach? Bevell replaced Urban Myer in Detroit?
Ouch!
I was wondering if anybody had actually read the entire article. Nobody mentioned that until you posted something about it. Yes, I would definitely take the job as a proofreader too.
Loser, but even stupider on Jaguars part for having faith in him in the first place
I believe some editing of this article quoting Rapoport should be done.
Lmfao honestly being a terrible NFL head coach is probably the best investment of all time. These guys get canned after 1 year on like 5 year deals and get paid the full amount.
Wow. How is this so terribly written?
If they rehire him, would that qualify as Urban Renewal?
Assuming Nagy gets fired at season’s end, which job so you think is more appealing: Bears or Jags?
Jaguars, I’d say. Lawrence is the better QB, and I think he’d plug more easily into different coaching schemes.
With Chicago you’d have to potentially deal with poor upper management. Fields, while talented, maybe doesn’t fit into as many systems either.
Plus warm, sunny Florida versus cold, snowy Chicago? Yeah…
On the other hand the Bears are a historic franchise and Chicago is a major market
And it’s difficult to say Lawrence is a better NFL qb currently. Both are struggling.
Jacksonville has more draft capital, more cap space, and a blanker slate, plus no state income tax. But also a franchise that’s been even more of a dumpster fire. I’d probably rather go to Jacksonville for Lawrence and youth reasons. If Pace keeps his job, I’d avoid Chicago.
Everyone: Bobby Petrino was the worse college to pro hire in history…
Urban Meyer: Cayman hold my beer.
Apparently had better professional athletes at UF & OSU
I wish my uw huskies would have waited. And hired this guy instead of the clown they hired. Maybe he can come on Pete’s staff and work as assistant. Idk. Guy gets a lot of hate and I think half the shut is false.
Which things exactly do you think are false? Do you also think the absolutely catastrophic on-field performance from the Jaguars is false?
The lap dance was real. The on-field performance wasn’t catastrophic, they beat the Bills and the team had, what, two wins all last season. They already have two this season. The kicker thing is a he said-he said, but so many internet experts are acting like they saw it.
Plain and simple, bringing in Tebow ruined any chances he had. These players that have a dozen kids to half a dozen women don’t want an evangelical Christian on the team playing a position that he had never played after being out of the league for a decade.
Hold up. Did you just say that out of all the things Meyer did, bringing in Tim Tebow for a couple of weeks was the worst?
Hold up. Did I use the word “worst” in my post? No, I did not. But bringing in Tebow who wasn’t a TE and had been out of the game for years lost Urban Meyer the locker room. If you remember, that is really when unnamed sources starting being quoted frequently.
After the kicker made his public remarks (months after the incident where he didn’t cooperate with league investigators) Khan really had no choice but to fire him.
Careful with the complaints about the article being poorly written. They actually allowed comments on this one, don’t make them close it up now!!
The only thing Urban had a handle on during his time with Jax was that “lap dance” girls butt
Anyone as self-destructive as Urban Meyer needs to seek professional help. His behavior has been appalling and his firing should have occurred weeks ago.
I didn’t expect any of these things this year to happen.
Urban had always carried himself in college well, or it was just hidden really well. But that’s hard to do nowadays with media always around. Players seemed to like playing for him in the past also.
It seems something personally in him has changed, and hopefully he can get help. This was needed for both sides.
Meyer must have CTE to behave like this
The Jags should go all in and trade 2 first round picks for Mike Tomlin! Jags need a coach and Tomlin needs a fresh start to build from the ground up!
Hoping your Steelers overpay to get rid of Tomlin….kind of yucky but not bad.
no one more deserving of a mid-season dumping than this absolute trash heap of a person. rude to his players, rude to his staff, disrespectful of his wife, possibly covered up murders, etc etc.