Urban Meyer: The Worst Head Coach Hire Ever?
I don’t follow college ball closely, so when the Jags hired Urban Meyer, I didn’t have much of an opinion either way. My knowledge of Urbs amounted to this: He was the Florida coach when Tebow was there, then he was at Ohio State, he left Ohio State due to health problems that most people suspect was actually him ditching to avoid scandals. He seemed like a weasel and an asshole but he also seemed successful and frankly being kind of an asshole feels like a pre-requisite trait for coaching football, so I figured it might work out. I should have paid more attention to the people I knew who followed college football. They were all laughing at the hire. They were right to do so. What an absolute disaster of a hire. Arguably the worst head coaching tenure in NFL history. Before you write the rebuttal finish this post and see my argument first.
From day one Urbs was a problem. Remember when he hired Chris Doyle? Chris Doyle was a strength coach who was previously at Iowa, and left because he was accused of being a racist and a bully. Urbs defended the hire but the backlash was fierce and Doyle resigned the very next day.
His next issue was Tebow. Tebow was once Urban’s prized pony in Florida, so the connection made sense, but Tebow hadn’t touched an NFL field in years and was now trying out at Tight End. It felt less like Urban doing right by his old flame and more like a publicity stunt. Tebow is beloved in northern Florida thanks to Gainesville’s proximity to Jax, not to mention his weird cult following around the country of Christian try-hards. One of them commented on the last comic. I can almost assure you one will show up on this one. Tebow didn’t work out and that whole stunt faded into the past.
The Jags got fined by the NFL over the summer for violating practice rules. They also got subpoenaed about the Doyle mess.
Then the video came out. The Jags went to Cincinnati, got plastered, and instead of flying home with the team Urban stayed in Ohio to be with “family” and by “be with family” he meant grind on college girls in his restaurant. The epitome of class. The video shows him sticking his fingers right between her legs. While it wasn’t sexual assault or anything it was an exceptionally bad look for a married man preaching accountability and family and all those virtues. Urban was at risk of firing just 4 weeks into his tenure and had to address the team about his actions. If this incident had happened later in the year I think Urbs would have been gone right then, but being so early the Jags got stuck in the sunk cost fallacy. The grinding video was also the point where most neutral and ignorant fans like myself turned on the guy. Oh, he really is a piece of shit!
Then came more and more losing. Not good, competitive losing like the Lions, just outright disgraceful losing. The entire team seemed mismanaged and the highlight of the year so far was a 9-6 clunker of a flag-ridden win against a Bills team that absolutely shat the bed during a year where they are continuously underperforming. They just kept sucking, week in and week out. No progress. No sign that this team was headed anywhere of value. Urban kept making weird statements in press conferences that seemed to indicate he didn’t know who was playing or when. James Robinson, the team’s best RB, was benched for fumbling even though he was the clear best option.
Then the leaks really started hitting in the last week. Urban was a complete asshole to players and coaches, calling his staff a bunch of losers and forcing them to defend their resumes. Didn’t you hire these people, Urbs? The locker room appeared to have been lost. Then yesterday a report comes out that Josh Lambo, the previous Jags kicker, was himself kicked by Urban while stretching in practice. When Lambo pushed back, Urban postured and acted like a douche. This appeared to be the final straw and at fucking midnight on Wednesday the news drops that Shad finally pulled the plug and sent Urban home for good. That’s the end of that chapter.
Urban appears to be the next strong case of college coaches that can’t make it in the NFL. There are exceptions, like Pete Carroll, Harbaugh, and Jimmy Johnson. There are fringe cases, like Chip Kelly, who was kinda good before things went south. But Urban fell into the camp of college bullies who don’t treat their players like the professional men they are. They are used to bullying these 19 yr old kids who have absolutely zero leverage. NFL players, especially older vets, are professional, paid men who aren’t going to take that shit for long. Carroll, Harbaugh, Johnson, and all the best coaches in the league treat their players like the adults they are. Coaches like that don’t work anymore in the NFL. They did once. I think the last truly successful asshole coach was Coughlin, and I think Coughlin still treated his players with more respect. Matt Patricia was a tyrant dickhead and look at him now. This is the main reason I think Judge will fail. I don’t know how he treats his guys in the building, but from the outside, he looks like a pointless hardass.
So Urban went 2-11, embarrassed everyone, and got fired before one year was over. Does this make him the worst hire in history? Let’s look at his obvious competition.
Bobby Petrino: Went 3-10, abandoned the Falcons like a disgraceful snake. A shitty dude who promised to stay and bailed with laminated thank you cards. However, he won one more game than Meyer did, and his original purpose as coach was to help Michael Vick, who he never got to work with thanks to the dogfighting scandal. He also left on his own accord and wasn’t fired. People also remember his motorcycle accident with his mistress, but that happened well after he left the Falcons. While that remains funny as shit, it shouldn’t count here.
Hue Jackson: Hue was a joke of a coach for the Browns, but he wasn’t the worst hire at the start. He’d been mildly successful in Oakland as HC and was a good o-coordinator for Cincy. While his record is abysmal in Cleveland, people like to forget that was kind of the entire plan. Cleveland was trying a 76ers style “process” move that expected the team to suffer for a while and gather draft capital. After year 3 started and no improvement was shown, it became clear this plan wasn’t working with Hue at the helm and who Hue was came into clearer focus. Hue was incapable of putting any blame on himself and he absolutely sucked, but I don’t think he was worse than Urban since many of his failures were intended as part of a larger, misguided strategy.
Lou Holtz: The Jets coach in 1976 went 3-10 and left for Arkansas after the season ended. I wasn’t alive for this one, so I don’t know if the scandal quota was there.
Folks like Adam Gase, Mike Ditka, Josh McDaniels, and such were failures, but Urban just feels worse. He didn’t make it a single season, won exactly two games, and spent the entire time embarrassing himself and the franchise. He’s got a claim for the crown. Part of this mess is social media amplifying everything. I’m sure what Urban did honestly wasn’t out of the realm of typical for coaches a while ago before the 24/7 news cycle and twitter blowing everything up, but that’s the world now. These microscopes make it harder to make mistakes, but they also make it clear that previous types of behavior will not be tolerated, especially if you can’t produce results.
Fuck Urban Meyer, and I hope the Jags can move forward. Maybe fire Trent Baalke next. Trent Baalke sucks ass and it’s no wonder the Jags had a ton of leaks, the 49ers also had a ton of leaks when Baalke was around. Baalke is a problem.
One last grind for the road.
I’m just sad that the Texans are once again the most dysfunctional team in the AFC South.
I am pretty sure we are the most dysfunctional team in the NFL
I swear the Colts ownership must have some pretty damning picture of league figures because at least one team in the AFC South is “new record level lows” level of bad every year. Come to think of it, given that Indianapolis is several hundred miles north of anything “South” anyway, i think this confirms it!
Washington would like a word
Cam Cameron was a horrendous hire, but he was just straight-up incompetent, not malicious. We only went 1-15 despite him back then – and even then we almost luzzed it away as Baltimore took us to overtime. We should be the Miami Camarillos in Greg’s honour.
Nah, we had to wait for Jeff Ireland for the malice to kick in. And once he did what he could we were properly toxic.
Ditka wasn’t really a failure. He at least won a Super Bowl, unlike the other names you mentioned as failures.
I think the reason Shad Kahn took so long to fire Urban is that he was consulting with his legal team over whether he could fire with cause and so avoid paying him the rest of the contract because he had to have known it was over after the story that the players lauged him out of the post bar incident meeting.
Agreed. He definitely wanted to get out of paying Urban the full five years and the Lambo incident coming to light was probably enough to void the rest of the contract.
In many ways it also works to his advantage. The more stuff that has come out about Urban, the more it will make the teams failures feel like his failures directly. He also should be commended for pulling the plug this year and not trying to make it work like the Jets did with Adam Gase. No point in wasting two seasons.
Agreed, it’s hard to find a more dazzlingly incompetent clusterbeep of a tenure than this. I hope he spends at least the next year being punished for being a $*#& human, and then, after massive self reflection, he can start the healing process by giving back.
Subjectively, though, nobody tops Ben McPoop in my book. Mara rushed to hire him because Philly wanted him. And then Philly won a SB with the coach they might not have had if Mara recognized this idiot for what he was. He killed Eli’s starting streak for Geno. He wore suits that didn’t fit. He put crisco in his hair to look like the stereotype of a NJ/NY native. Teased us that first year only to throw our hearts in a grinder.
As for Coughlin, I don’t think he was successful as an a-hole coach, at least not with the Giants. The years he had success were after he was about to be fired for being an a-hole, and then completely turned himself around and treated the players with genuine dignity. So while being an a-hole coach was in his blood, the years he had massive success were when he entirely stopped being one.
While McAdoo was by no means competent (and probably never gets a second shot with any other team as HC), I think more of the issues are Mara’s fault. The impression I had was that subbing Geno Smith for Eli was simply him following orders from above and not having the social skills to handle it at all. He was more an embarrassment than an outright asshole. Also the impression I’ve always had about Pederson was that that Super Bowl was more due to Frank Reich and good luck, though he was at least somewhat better at people skills than McAdoo (low bar I know).
Speaking as a fan of the team that had Frank Reich as OC before his stint on the Eagles, I don’t understand how he gets so much credit for that ring. He was terrible with the Chargers, and QB talent wasn’t an issue. I think over the long term with the Colts, he will prove to be mediocre at best.
Anyway Dave, here’s your pool update post week 14:
You got an 11, which was very good, but not enough to win the week – there were three 12’s. Overall you’re at 126*, good for a tie from 9th – 10th. The current leader has 135.
Bobby Petrino is also the reason for one of Mike Zimmer’s all time greatest quotes, so he’s got that going for him.
As someone who only views college ball as a necessary evil because minor leagues will never be feasible for the NFL, I always love when when a hotshot college coach gets hired and fails miserably and eventually returns to the college circuit with their tail between their leg. I’ve enjoyed this since watching Steve Spurrier’s failed stint with the Redskins in the 90’s. Oddly enough though I’d make an exception for one-and-done stints like Nick Saban with the Dolphins and Al Groh with the Jets where it seemed like they were being more honest with themselves and returned on their own accord.
Just one quick edit, spurrier was 2000’s for the skins, he was a Snyder hire. I know it sometimes feels way longer but Snyder has only been packing Washington into the dumpster for 22 years.
The issue with Saban is the bald face lies he gave to the owner and the media.
“He stood up, we shook hands and he said, ‘You have a head coach,’ ” Arthur Blank said. Saban told the media on 12/21/07 “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”. Then 01/03/08 he announced he was hired to be the Alabama coach.
Still, doesn’t make him the worst college coach jumping to the NFL and doesn’t mean he should be defined by this instance of dishonesty that happened 14 years ago.
I think that was Bobby patreno
Petrino went to arkansas I believe, not alabama
you guys are right, I confused Petrino with Saban.
The “you have a head coach” line was Petrino to Falcons owner Arthur Blank 24 hours before walking out on the team before the end of the 2007 season. Saban had said “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach” two weeks before he left the Dolphins for Alabama at the end of the 2006 season.
I knew right off the bat that Meyer couldn’t develop Trevor Lawrence properly. Jags fans must be happy that he is gone; Team morale is probably skyrocketing.
“But Urban fell into the camp of college bullies who don’t treat their players like the professional men they are. They are used to bullying these 19 yr old kids who have absolutely zero leverage.”
You hit the nail on the head here and the incident with Josh Lambo exemplifies this. If you pulled aside all the kickers that played under him in college, I’d be willing to bet that nearly all of them would say that he pulled a stunt like this. To me, it just shows how messed up the system is once you step below the NFL level. These are grown men dealing with a bunch of “adults” in name only. They’re still pretty socially immature and figuring out how to establish proper boundaries with what are essentially their bosses and assholes like Urban Meyer take full advantage of it.
As someone that follows college ball (albeit from a somewhat biased perspective for many years as I was an avid Michigan fan), yeah, it was pretty clear that Urban wasn’t going to last very long regardless of how good a person he is. He was an excellent recruiter but he was an okay coach at best, and there was a reason Ohio State seemed to always suffer at least one exceptionally stupid loss per year that would knock them out of playoff contention. Outside of 2014-15, he was often getting straight up outcoached in big games and his roster of 4 and 5 star future NFL players couldn’t save the day for him. All that being said, even I didn’t think things would go this poorly for him. By all accounts this is one of the worst head coaching hires of all time and I’m inclined to agree with you that it is the worst.
The fall of the Jaguars has been something else. It’s crazy to think they were a few minutes away from a Super Bowl appearance just a few years ago. 2017 looks more and more like some bizarro anomaly with each new season.
2017 was a flash in the pan, it was a year where everything just happened to come together. They could have repeated that year if they moved on from Bortles and added more offensive weapons.
Also so many of those pieces were off the team in the next year or two. The core of that team barely lasted together.
I can’t really blame them for sticking with Bortles honestly. Sure, looking back it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t the guy and they needed to move onto a better passer, but in the moment he was just coming off of a very solid season and a pretty damn good playoff run all things considered. They lost the AFC Championship because their coaches holed up and played it extremely safe against Brady and Co., not because of anything Blake Bortles did (though you could argue the staff not having enough faith in him down the stretch played a factor). Didn’t help that they had a couple of huge calls go against them as well. I get why fans wanted them to move on, but I can also see why the Jags may have thought that it was too premature.
I think if you can isolate Bortles’ stats down to just the point in the game where there was no way his team was going to come back and win it, you’d see hall of famer numbers. He was the absolute king of garbage time scoring, and somehow this made him very fantasy viable.
His 2016 season was just insane lmao. Another reason you really can’t just blindly trust counting stats on the surface. Tricked quite a few talking heads into thinking he was something special.
I’m going with petrino just because of the spineless way he left
Actually, would josh mcdaniels for the…colts was it? Count in this? There was a team that was ready to get him and he backed out and stayed in NE at the last second. Like after they’d already hired coaches for him to work with and everything I think. If that counts, I think that’s the worst because they hired someone who never coached a game for them and ended up with a bunch of hires they probably ended up not wanting.
Spineless indeed. Some may even call it “gutless”.
I’m confused why you lumped Mike Ditka in with McDaniels and Adam Gase. He may have been bad in New Orleans but he had a winning record and a ring coaching the bears. Overrated as a coach? Probably, but it doesn’t make any sense to include him with those idiots.
And before somebody brings it up, yes I know he traded his entire draft for Ricky Williams, it’s one mistake compared to consistent nonsense from Gase.
Was Ricky Williams really a draft mistake? I’m too young to really remember but I thought he was a good RB who just kept getting suspended because of weed? That’s not exactly something Ditka could’ve forseen.
You’re remembering Sticky Ricky on the Dolphins. I think he was good for the Saints for a couple of years but just kept getting hurt. Then he got traded for a bucket of picks, but still, that’s an entire draft for a couple of years of inconsistent production at runningback. Definitely a mistake.
I saw him on a list of worst HC hires in history for his tenure with the Saints
Am Saints fan, he wasn’t great. But, then again, that was just kind of par for the course in those days, so nobody down here really has any animosity towards him.
Ditka is known for one team, 85 Bears, one where an antagonistic assistant ran the defensive side, and the defense was the strength. He’s far more famous than he was good but he didn’t fuck it up when he got great cards and some certainly would.
Jags fans: we feel ya.
– Arizona Coyotes fans
Love the Star Trek reference!!!
I also enjoyed the reference, but took so long reading Dave’s thoughts I forgot it existed. When I hit your comment, I had went back to look and hit the thought-bubble panel. Almost replied to tell you that that was not in fact Urby telling everyone to live long and prosper.
but is referencing the old good movie or the bad new one
The good one. Into Darkness can kiss my ass
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a firing more UNIVERSALLY celebrated than Urban’s. By al accounts fro everyone he was just a total garbage pile of a coach and a human being. Ultimately I tihnk it all comes down him being a poor judge of character, both for himself and others. We can obviously look at his many hiring scandals from college as part of that.
But if we take him for his word about the whole Lambo kicking incident, for just a moment. Maybe he was just trying to fire him up. maybe he was trying to build some kind of rapport off the back of toxic masculinity. If so, he GROSSLY misjudged how he was being perceived and never really took the time to step back and think “hmmm, why would he respond so poorly to a little joke?.” With the bar scandal, maybe he DID just want to go out for a beer and check up on a business he owns. But he had no ounce of self-perception o realize, “hmmmm maybe my “head coach” hat doesn’t just get to come off dring the season and I should be more responsive to my team”.
People in positions of power need to be able to self-reflect and adjust if what they’re doing isn’t working. You can’t just wall yourself off and pretend like your shit doesn’t stink. Basically, Urban Meyer was the living embodiment of “No, it’s the kids who are wrong” and I’ve never felt such satisfying schadenfreude seeing his freefall from grace.
Still not the oddest “misguided attempt at motivation by a head coach resulting in harm to a kicker or punter” in Jaguars history, given the infamous “Keep Chopping Wood” incident of 2003.
THIS. This is the comic I was waiting for.
Although I was hoping it would be Patriot Pat rather than Jaxson.
I hope under those sunglasses Jaxson has the same starry eyes from the previous Urban grinding comics.
The guy in the crowd holding the sign that just says “DUDE” might be my favorite part of this comic.
I don’t disagree with any of your conclusions here, but I think Hue Jackson deserves some kind of special award for how much he was the instrument of his own destruction, and all while THINKING he was showing what a great leader he was. That season of the Browns on Hard Knocks, almost every scene you could see Hue thinking how great he must be coming off, while those of watching went from “He’s not that bad of a coach…” at the start and giving him a pass for things like having his iconic owner pass away in Oakland, to by the end realizing “Oh, he’s WAY worse than we thought”.
So I don’t wanna distract from dunking on Meyer, but are you going to address the new covid rules Dave?
I’m a Christian, and take my faith seriously, so maybe that makes me a Christian try hard. But I also know that my relationship with my creator should enable humility and service (and I’m Canadian and we’re obviously the kindest people too!). And while I do see it should be a measure for myself, it’s also about accountability between members of the faith.
I think it’s despicable that people like Meyer call themselves Christians and pose as role models. Jesus reserved his most scathing criticism for the self-righteous who pushed others down… Hypocrites blind to their own failings.. Whitewashed tombs. I could rehash the trainwreck of his tenure in Jacksonville but the other comments have it covered.
And to a lesser extent I see Tebow the same way; way overconfident of his own standing, taking credit for things outside his control, and so arrogant towards coaches who wanted to explore his possible uses in the league beyond being a QB.
It baffles me the way that people (like Meyer’s wife) make excuses for him under a guise of grace or forgiveness. She likes having those drinks named after her. She bows before the dollar. She’s as much of a snake as he is.
It also baffles me that people think Tebow is a decent football player, regardless of his faith. College =/= pros, especially when you’ve got a huge talent advantage. Funny story though, my sister took a bet with some of her friends that Tebow wouldn’t beat the Steelers in the playoffs, and if he did they’d go to church. So they held up their end when the Broncos won. At least the Patriots stomped Tebow the next week (it’s like Steph Curry not realizing the Philippians 4:13 verse on his shoes is about joy and sporting attitudes in suffering and disappointing circumstances, not about overcoming others)
“And to a lesser extent I see Tebow the same way; way overconfident of his own standing, taking credit for things outside his control, and so arrogant towards coaches who wanted to explore his possible uses in the league beyond being a QB.”
This is such a bizarre take for me. “This adult human being doesn’t want to take his career where I think he should take it, that means he’s arrogant.” Maybe he didn’t want to play a different position and wasn’t depending on an NFL paycheck for his livelihood so he could afford to pursue his other interests. And when years down the line his old coach came calling, he’d changed his mind. That happens, you know?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HA Ha haaaaa… Fuck you Urban. Go grind yourself a heart attack you Jackhole.
Two words:
Rich Kotite
Petrino was the worst ever. A real disaster during his tenure in the NFL. But Meyer is a close second. Maybe Hue Jackson after that. All of them are assholes, but then again Belichick too, and Shula, Halas, Parcells, and Lombardi were assholes too, so it doesn’t matter if you are an asshole coach in the NFL, as long as you succeed.
It is pretty clear that the hire turned out to be a monumental embarrassment.
The people involved must either be either butting their heads into a wall to punish themselves for their stupidity, or sitting in dark rooms moaning while eating ice cream.
But I don’t know if this is the best metric to measure a historically bad hires.
I would be more interested in hires that did lasting damage.
I don’t have enough historical context for this, but i wonder if a one or two year coach managed to do something irrevocably stupid and longlasting. Something along the lines of Ditka trading of all his team’s draft picks for the year, plus half of his next years draft picks, to move up to pick Ricky Williams.
Making a fool out of yourself must suck, but there is a difference between falling down and getting right back up on the spot, than realizing that you can’t because you broke or tore something important.
Is… Is that a Space Marine in the crowd?
FOR THE EMPEROR!
There seems to be a lot of disagreement as to what the criterion is for worst coaching hire ever.
I think a lot of the criteria has to include the “wtf smdh” factor in the initial hiring decision. Hiring a “good” coach like Ditka and then having things fall apart is an understandable management decision. Even hiring a “failed” coach and it not working out isn’t necessarily a bad thing; there’s plenty of precedent of coaches excelling (or at least getting lucky) on their second or third try, e.g. Billy B and Pete Carroll.
When I heard that the Jags had hired Meyer, my response was “wtf smdh”. Petrino and Saban weren’t that long ago and were even in Khan’s back yard. The precedent suggested that chances of success were slim to none, and the chance of a spectacular flameout was huge. And even by the Petrino & Saban standards, this flameout is spectacular.
FWIW I also thought “wtf smdh” when the Seahawks hired Caroll, but that was more because I *didn’t* believe he’d do any better with them than he did with the Jets or Patriots. Glad I was wrong.
Speaking of which, I wouldn’t count Caroll as a “successful college coach going to the NFL”; he was an NFL HC before he went back to college, and USC was a de facto professional program anyway.
The sad thing is that people will use Urban Meyer’s case to say that college coaches don’t succeed in the NFL. Urban Meyer didn’t get fired for going 2-11. Urban Meyer got fired for being a piece of shit.
for being a piece of shit WHILE going 2-11 lol!