Urban Meyer Reacts to Cut-Down Day As Jaguars’ Cut 23 and Hope To Get Back Several on Wednesday

For Urban Meyer, the day was awful. Why? Because up to now, as the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach puts it, it’s been fairly awesome. Tuesday was cut-down day, arguably the most difficult day in the NFL season, when clubs must reduce their rosters to the initial 53-men that will make up the active Week 1 roster.

There were benchmarks put in to help the cuts come in waves. Five guys here, five guys there. But Tuesday saw the Jaguars say goodbye to 27 guys, moving the roster from 80 to the 53 men.

The 53#DUUUVAL pic.twitter.com/wpIbBPW0IP
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) August 31, 2021

“It was awful to an extent,” admitted Meyer after the finalized roster was announced.

The first time NFL coach had been girding his loins so to speak, preparing for a series of meetings he’d never had to conduct in the college ranks. Any time he dismissed a player there, it was necessary. In some ways, he was hoping some guys would make these decisions today easier on him, by exhibiting an attitude he could justify cutting.

“It’s going to be tough. If you’re an insubordinate guy or just kind of a pain in the rear end, I never mind moving those guys out but we don’t have that in that locker room, so it’s going to be tough,” Meyer predicted after Sunday’s 34-14 win over the Dallas Cowboys in the preseason finale.

On Tuesday, he found he was right.

“We don't have bad guys here. I mean this has been a incredible experience for me, and I told every one of the guys as I met with them, I mean I can’t, since day one since our staff’s been here, guys have been awesome. I mean this has been much better than I ever expected.”

The players being better than he could have expected made Tuesday tougher than he would’ve hoped. But the silver lining, according to the coach, is that he only has to wait less than 24 hours to possibly welcome some back into the fold.

Teams will be allowed 16 players on their practice squad again this year, a change that came last year due to COVID protocols, increasing the squad from 12 players. The practice squad changes put in place also allow for two vested vets (players with more than four years experience).

With those rules in place, Meyer is hoping to get back several guys Wednesday at 1 p.m.

“The good thing is, this practice squad has been enhanced over the last year and a half so yeah. I think we had to trim by 27, but 16 of them are going to come back tomorrow at one o'clock and we're still working through that as we speak,” Meyer explained.

“So that was a little bit more easy to deal with, a little easier to deal with then, just see you later. So we have a good chunk of guys who we plan on—if they don't get claimed—coming back.”

As to who those players will be, it depends largely on which are picked up by other teams versus not. Gamesmanship would say bury some on the sideline during the late preseason games so as to avoid other teams seeing what they can bring. But the players Meyer mentioned most wanting to bring back received significant snaps in the preseason games.

“He’s still in the picture,” said Meyer of Phillip Dorsett II, who was released. "We’re thinking of ways. He’s dinged right now. He has a hamstring and he’s had a little bit of an issue since he’s been here with that. We want to keep him if there’s a way to keep him.”

The tight end room was reduced to three bodies. On the active roster, that will likely stay that way. But Meyer liked what he saw from some of the depth second-year players.

“That was tough because Tyler Davis really came on near the end. We’re going to try to keep him, as well as [Ben] Ellefson. He really did a nice job.”

Then, perhaps one of the more shocking cuts, veteran safety Jarrod Wilson, could still be a Jaguar according to Meyer.

“Jarrod was a tough one, Jarrod Wilson, but I don’t think that one’s done. We’re still having conversations how to make that work.”

The first cut-down day was awful at times for Meyer, as tough decisions had to be made. But that’s a good thing for the Jaguars, he maintains, as the young club has a roster he can boast about.