When the Jacksonville Jaguars fired Urban Meyer a week ago, it felt like a long time coming. Meyer had embarrassed the team with his viral bar video in October, and he reportedly alienated his players and coaches with his managerial style. By the time the Tampa Bay Times released its report about Meyer kicking Josh Lambo during warmups in August, defenders of the national championship-winning coach were few and far between.
However, Meyer has found one relatively unsurprising ally in former Miami Hurricanes and Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson. The two were colleagues and friends at Fox Sports, and like Meyer, Johnson attempted to navigate the NFL after a national championship college stint. Johnson was much more successful, though, winning two Super Bowls and eventually being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He came to Meyer’s defense, arguing that the coach wasn’t able to surround himself with “his people” in Jacksonville.
“Going to Jacksonville, just like when I went to Dallas, you knew you were gonna lose, you’re gonna have adversity,” Johnson told Pro Football Talk. “The difference is, in Dallas, I had my entire coaching staff from college. I had my administrative assistant, I had my P.R. director, I had my trainer. We were all on the same page when we had adversity. He didn’t have that in Jacksonville. There was a lot of backstabbing, one thing or the other, because he didn’t have his people.”
This is an interesting bone to pick considering the fact that Meyer selected his staff personally. If he was unhappy with the coaches and staffers surrounding him, he only has himself to blame. It’s not like the decision to hire a first-time defensive coordinator in Joe Cullen or an offensive coordinator with a hit-or-miss track record in Darrell Bevell wasn’t criticized at the time.
Besides, if the reports are true, the biggest problem wasn’t the people around Meyer. Instead, it was Meyer himself and the lack of respect with which he treated those who worked for him. It’s hard to read Johnson’s comments as anything other than defending his old friend from damning reports that no one involved in the situation except Meyer has denied.
