Jimmy Johnson on Urban Meyer’s Tenure As Jaguars’ HC: ‘There Was a Lot of Backstabbing’
The Urban Meyer apology tour continues to ride on in full force, this time with former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson serving as a supporting voice for Meyer after his nightmarish tenure as the Jacksonville Jaguars' head coach came crashing down.
Meyer was fired last Thursday morning after countless controversies and just 13 games under his belt, not even one-fifth of a way through the five-year contract he signed with the Jaguars in January. Johnson, whom Meyer knew through their time together at Fox Sports, was a close confidant and mentor of sorts for Meyer and his transition to the NFL, making it little surprise to see Johnson speak on Meyer's failed tenure this weekend.
“Going to Jacksonville, just like when I went to Dallas, you knew you were gonna lose, you’re gonna have adversity,” Johnson said on Fox's NFL pregame show this past Sunday, via ProFootballTalk.
Johnson suffered losing in a big way in his own transition to the NFL from the college ranks, going 1-15 in his first year with the Cowboys after five years with Miami. Johnson and Meyer each stressed before the season that they had continued talks about the comparisons between the Cowboys and Johnson and the Jaguars and Meyer, but the only real similarly based in fact is that neither team was good in the coach's first year.
The difference? Johnson had the Herschel Walker trade and a free agency period that didn't have an imposed salary cap, and he then went on to prove himself as a head coach and lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl. Meyer, meanwhile, embarrassed himself and the Jaguars on and off the field and found himself fired before his first season ended.
Still, Johnson had a different read of Meyer's failures. Much like Meyer himself, Johnson put the onus of Meyer's horrid tenure as an NFL head coach on anyone but Meyer himself.
“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 Jacksonsville. There was a lot of backstabbing, one thing or the other, because he didn’t have his people.”
Meyer found himself essentially battling anonymous sources for the entirety of his final weeks as the Jaguars head coach. First, an NFL Network report on the Saturday before Week 14's bout against the Titans painted Meyer as a coach with enemies both on his coaching staff and in the locker room. Then on Wednesday, former kicker Josh Lambo accused Meyer of kicking him. Hours later, Meyer was fired.
Meyer had numerous run-ins with players and coaches alike throughout his lone season with the Jaguars and the idea that he created enemies that would then have the chance to backstab him isn't exactly out there. What needs to be remembered, though, is that Meyer himself made those enemies and more or less put the knives in their hands as he continued to supply them with ammo and evidence of his lack of qualifications to be the Jaguars' head coach.
"After deliberation over many weeks and a thorough analysis of the entirety of Urban’s tenure with our team, I am bitterly disappointed to arrive at the conclusion that an immediate change is imperative for everyone," Jaguars owner Shad Khan said in a statement when he fired Meyer.
"As I stated in October, regaining our trust and respect was essential. Regrettably, it did not happen."
Jaguars cornerback Shaquill Griffin spoke to local media last Thursday in the wake of Meyer's firing and presented interesting comments on why things went sideways for Meyer, whose message to the locker room wore thin after his Week 4 embarrassment at a Columbus bar.
"I feel like this locker room needs a head coach that actually believes in what their players are saying. Trust in that we can all make this work – that this is not a one-man show," Griffin said when asked what kind of head coach he thinks the locker room needs.
"I feel like sometimes head coaches come in and are just like, ‘I’m just going to flip around. This is my way, let’s do it.’ Sometimes they forget about us. For any head coach who decides to take on this job or whatever the case may be, trust your teammates. We can do this together, we can win this together. This is a team effort. That would be my main message – let’s do this together as a team.”
