Urban Meyer hits crisis with Jaguars, Matt Ryan reflects on 28-3 and more

Urban Meyer’s questionable judgment creates yet another crisis during his brief tenure as Jaguars head coach. Plus, Matt Ryan reflects on his Super Bowl loss and more.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have reached a crisis moment in Urban Meyer’s brief tenure as head coach.

Meyer has been working overtime doing damage control since Saturday evening when a video leaked of him grinding on a young woman — who isn’t his wife — in a Columbus restaurant. The incident took place two days after the Jaguars lost a last-second heartbreaker to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday Night Football.

What Meyer does on his own time is between him and his family, and while the video has created quite a distraction and social media stir, his actions that night should be the least of the Jaguars worries.

Meyer skipping the team flight to stay in Ohio is nearly unprecedented, and at the very least gives an aura of lack of commitment from a head coach who is just finding his footing in the NFL. Already having has lost more games in one month than his last final four seasons at Ohio State combined, Meyer could very well lose more games this season than his entire tenure on the Buckeyes sideline.

“The biggest issue here is him not flying home with the team,” an NFL pro personnel director tells FanSided, on the condition of anonymity to speak freely. “That’s the biggest concern from the standpoint of him keeping his job. What he does on his own time is his own business, I guess, as long as he isn’t breaking the law. I try not to be the moral police.”

Morality aside, what happened in that bar is between Meyer, his wife, and his three children, but the Jaguars and owner Shad Khan need to decide whether Meyer’s performance on Sundays outweighs the issues the organization has already had to circumnavigate since his arrival on January, 14.

This weekend is just the tip of an iceberg that has been forming for 10 months off the coast of northern Florida.

Almost immediately, Meyer put Khan and the Jaguars on their heels in the court of public opinion, when he hired Chris Doyle as Jacksonville’s strength and conditioning coordinator, despite Doyle having a lengthy history of University of Iowa players allegedly facing racial discrimination at his hand during his tenure. Following a 35-hour media maelstrom that had Meyer and the Jaguars in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons, Doyle resigned.

Still, the incident brought Meyer’s poor judgement he once again showed this weekend to the fore.

Likewise, Meyer put the loyalty of his new locker room to the test when he misguidedly allocated a roster spot all offseason and through training camp to 34-year-old Tim Tebow, who was attempting to resurrect his failed NFL career, this time as a tight end.

As always, a media circus accompanied Tebow’s arrival, and for nearly five months Tebow took up one of the Jaguars’ 90 roster spots, which may have prevented a young tight end from legitimately making the team. When it became clear as the water in the Friendship Fountain that Tebow was a liability when he was on the field in the preseason, Meyer was forced to pivot, and release the college football legend.

Meyer’s decisions and actions in both the Doyle and Tebow instances rocked his credibility both among outside observers, and players on his own team, and it would appear this week the embattled head coach is scraping the bottom of that credibility barrel.

Monday, Jaguars owner Shad Khan released a statement, reaffirming that “[Meyer’s] conduct last weekend was inexcusable, I appreciate Urban’s remorse, which I believe is sincere. Now, he must regain our trust and respect.”

That could be a heavy lift, if players are already turning their backs on the coach Khan is paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $9-12 million annually to lead.

“Urban has enough money to fly home and take a private jet back up to see family, or whomever, the next morning,” the executive tells FanSided. “Hell, the owner probably would have even arranged it for him.”

It truly is difficult to understand Meyer’s poor judgement, if only considering that he didn’t fly home with his team, and reportedly canceled a team meeting Monday because he was managing the fallout of his decision.

Khan’s decision not to simply move on from Meyer, at least on the surface, appears motivated by the fact that the Jaguars would owe Meyer approximately $50 million to fire him today.

“If he’s my client,” an NFL agent tells FanSided. “I’d find it hard to believe they could fire him without earning all of his money in the process.”

Despite Khan’s statement, there’s a very real possibility Meyer doesn’t survive this. Especially if the players make the situation untenable for the Jaguars’ owner to keep Meyer on the payroll.

Regardless, though, this weekend underscores just how far in over his head Meyer is at the NFL level. At ever step of his tenure as Jaguars head coach, Meyer seems one step closer to realizing he made a terrible mistake when he made the decision to take this job, and leave the confines of the college game, where he won 219 games and three national championships.

Even on the field, the Jaguars have no identity, under Meyer.

Jacksonville boasts the NFL’s 22nd-ranked offense, averaging 321.1 yards per game, but only six teams have scored fewer than the Jaguars’ 18.5 points per game. Meanwhile, opponents are averaging 418.5 yards against Jacksonville’s 30th-ranked defense, and scoring 28.8 points per game.

This story has been written so many times before, with Steve Spurrier’s quick departure from Washington to South Carolina, Chip Kelly wearing out his welcome in Philadelphia before racing back to the comfort of the Pac 12, and Bobby Petrino skipping out on his Atlanta Falcons immediately after a game, hours later being introduced in Arkansas as the Razorbacks’ head coach.

After this weekend, and everything we’ve seen the past 10 months, Meyer seems earmarked to walk that same worn trail back to USC, or Florida State, or LSU, where he’d have the resources, temperament and experience to add one more national championship to his resumé and maybe even eventually ride off into the sunset to replace Lee Corso on College GameDay a few years down the line.

It’s becoming clear, though, both as the Jaguars’ leader on the field and face of the franchise off it, Meyer seems unfit and unprepared for success at the NFL level.

Matt Ryan: ‘[28-3] never really leaves’

On Sunday night in Foxboro, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, the New England Patriots, all found closure amid an emotional evening during the Buccaneers’ 19-17 last-second win. Officially closing the book on one of the great dynasties in the history of American sports, as Brady walked off the field, perhaps as the only time as a visitor in New England.

One of the six championship banners Brady stared up at, during his first time as an opposing quarterback inside Gillette Stadium, created a moment that is etched into NFL history and remains a part of the quarterback on the losing sideline of Super Bowl LI.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, during a forthcoming appearance on FanSided’s The Matt Lombardo Show podcast, reflected on the impact Atlanta blowing a 28-3 lead has had on the twilight of his career.

“It never really leaves,” Ryan told me. “There’s always part of it that you use as motivation, moving forward. The key is, you can’t let it consume you.”

Brady has said he at times has worn a 199 t-shirt under his jersey on game day, as a reminder that he slipped all the way to the sixth-round of the 2000 NFL Draft. For Ryan, the second half of Super Bowl LI has served as a similar motivator.

“It takes some time afterwards,” Ryan admitted. “You’re in a funk, for sure, for a couple weeks following. But then ,you start to get back to work. You start to get back to work on things you need to improve on as an individual.”

The Falcons, in a lot of ways, have failed Matt Ryan over the latter stages of his career.

Since Belichick coached circles around Dan Quinn over the final 30 minutes and overtime in Houston, Ryan has averaged 4,516 passing yards with 107 touchdowns to just 44 interceptions over that span.

However, Atlanta struggled to match high-end defensive personnel that fit Quinn’s system, have watched its offensive line deteriorate, and were just 28-36 since Super Bowl LI, leading up to Quinn’s firing last October.

Had Quinn not sat on a 25-point lead to Brady, Belichick and the Patriots, and it been Ryan rather than Brady hoisting the Lombardi, Ryan is probably a Hall of Famer. He’s about to surpass Eli Manning for No. 9 on the all-time passing touchdowns list this season, could surpass both Manning and Dan Marino to climb into seventh-place on the NFL’s all-time passing yards list, but without a Super Bowl ring on his finger, his Hall of Fame candidacy is far from ironclad.

Despite Atlanta’s issues in recent years, one of the proudest moments of Ryan’s career, he tells me, was the effort of the 2017 Falcons.

Just one year after becoming an internet meme following their historic Super Bowl collapse, Ryan and the Falcons made it all the way back to the NFC Divisional Playoffs, where they took the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles to the brink.

“That showed there was a lot of resilience and fight to the guys in that locker room,” Ryan says.

This season, Ryan’s Falcons are in the midst of a 1-3 start to this season, after making the NFC Divisional playoffs one year after losing the Super Bowl and consecutive 7-9 campaigns leading up to this disappointing start to what is seemingly the beginning of a rebuild in Atlanta.

For at least one more season, the Falcons are all in on Ryan, especially after drafting tight end Kyle Pitts No. 4 overall in this spring’s NFL Draft.

Despite losing to the Philadelphia Eagles, Brady’s Buccaneers nearly hanging 50 on Atlanta, and Taylor Heinicke leading a furious forth quarter comeback of his own against the Falcons, Ryan is confident that things will turn around this season.

“I know I can play,” Ryan says. “I feel like I can play for a long time. My body feels really good. I really think, we’re in a spot where we’re 1-3, but we’re a team that’s gotten better every week. I think we’re going to continue to do that.

“If we can knock some wins off around the way, stay relevant, stay in the mix, we’re a group that can be a very good football team if we continue to work at it and build as the season goes along.”

Podcast

Quotable

"“Well that’s what we’re trying to correct, that’s what we’re trying to fix, but for whatever reason, we just keep getting drawn back into things, so, guys, at the end of the day, we’re gonna let this play out and we’ll trust in the system. And we’ll go from there.”"

– Washington Football Team head coach Ron Rivera, on perception there is a ‘dark cloud’ lingering over the franchise, courtesy of 106.7 FM The Fan

Throughout Daniel Snyder’s 22-year stewardship as owner, the Washington Football Team has been one of the more dysfunctional organizations in sports.

With controversies ranging from a reluctance to move on from the nickname of the franchise, to a Washington Post investigation that unearthed a culture of rampant sexual misconduct in the franchise’s workforce culture, and finally federal agents raiding the facility amid an ongoing criminal investigation involving head athletic trainer Ryan Vermillion, few businesses in America have faced more scrutiny over the past two decades.

However, Rivera’s arrival and steadying influence was a marked departure from how Snyder and Washington have conducted themselves.

It is not Rivera’s responsibility to answer for the sins of the organization’s past. But, the Washington Football Team organization — from top to bottom, would be wise to follow Rivera’s lead, given his track record of success.

Week 4 best bet

According to WynnBET, the Buccaneers are 10-point favorites over the Miami Dolphins. It wouldn’t matter if the Buccaneers were 14, 17, or even 20-point favorites, it’s difficult to envision Miami keeping pace with Brady, Chris Godwin, Mike Evans and Tampa’s offense.

Even with Brady not playing exceptionally well on Sunday night, the Buccaneers’ championship character shone through against the Patriots and they wound up finding a way to win. With Jacoby Brissett behind center for the Dolphins, this game has the feel of certain blowout.

Take the Buccaneers and the points.

Final thought

On Sunday night inside Arrowhead Stadium, the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills will meet in a game that carries all the weight and consequences of a January showdown, that just happens to be being played in October.

With the exception of January’s AFC Championship Game, this might be the most consequential game the Bills have played since walking off the field the losers of Super Bowl XXVIII, back in 1993.

There’s also a really good chance the road to the Super Bowl from the AFC side will run through the winner of Sunday night’s game.

Buffalo arrives in Kansas City with a defense plenty capable of slaying Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and the Chiefs.

After shutting out the Houston Texans and Miami Dolphins already in 2021, the Bills are just the third team in NFL history to post two shutouts through the first three four weeks. Buffalo now aims to join the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, and Washington in 1991 to record the feat en route to winning the Super Bowl.

The Bills’ arrive in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game rematch as Football Outsiders’ runaway leader in DVOA, boasting the NFL’s No. 1 ranked defense, while allowing a league-low 216.8 yards per game and holding opponents to a meager 11 points per contest.

But, the Chiefs, the Texans and Dolphins are not.

While going through their own identity crisis on defense, the Chiefs remain the most prolific offense in the NFL.

The Chiefs are averaging 33 points per game (trailing only the Arizona Cardinals and Bills), with Mahomes already tossing a league-high 14 touchdowns.

A classic immovable object vs. irresistible force, this game has the makings to be.

Entering Sunday, the Chiefs are looking to regain their championship swagger, already having lost to Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens and Justin Herbert’s Los Angeles Chargers in consecutive weeks. But, Sunday just might determine Kansas City’s ceiling this season.

There’s no question that Arrowhead is among the toughest environments in sports, and the Chiefs would love to host the playoffs in the Show-Me State. After all, Mahomes has never been forced to play a road playoff game.

However, the Chiefs’ road to home-field advantage and the AFC’s No. 1 seed traverses through the NFL’s toughest remaining schedule, with Kansas City’s opponents boasting a .635 winning percentage.

Meanwhile, the Bills are firing on all cylinders, and face the second-easiest remaining schedule over the final 12 weeks of the season. Buffalo’s opponents have a winning percentage of just .365, and the Bills still get to play the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Jets twice, the Falcons, the Colts, the Dolphins, two dates with Mac Jones and the Patriots.

The Chiefs, on the other hand, have games against the Giants and Steelers remaining, but still must face the Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Herbert’s Chargers — again — among other teams.

If the Bills can pull off an upset on Sunday night, they’ll have a two-game lead and the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Buffalo would certainly prefer to see Mahomes in January in the swirling winds and snow of Orchard Park, rather than the jet-hanger that is Kansas City’s sea of red in Arrowhead.

This is the Bills’ toughest game yet, and a game that could define the AFC race.