More than five years after Urban Meyer\u2019s disastrous stint as an NFL head coach ended following only 13 games, he has received a decision as to whether the Jaguars owe him a buyout.<\/p>\n
They do not.<\/p>\n
Via Brett McMurphy of On3.com, the Jaguars won the case<\/a> over whether Meyer\u2019s conduct justified a firing \u201cwith cause.\u201d The decision saved the Jaguars more than $30 million.<\/p>\n Per the report, witnesses included Meyer, Jaguars long snapper Ross Matiscik, Jaguars punter Logan Cooke, former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo, and former Jaguars G.M. Trent Baalke.<\/p>\n Meyer\u2019s tenure included $300,000 in fines for the violation of offseason workout rules, the notorious decision to skip the team<\/a> flight home after a Thursday night game in Cincinnati \u2014 plus an unfortunate viral video<\/a>, and the allegation from Lambo that Meyer kicked the kicker during a training-camp practice.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in a lunge position,\u201d Lambo told Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times in December 2021. \u201cLeft leg forward, right leg back. . . . Urban Meyer, while I\u2019m in that stretch position, comes up to me and says, \u2018Hey, Dipshit, make your fucking kicks!\u2019 And kicks me in the leg<\/a>. . . .<\/p>\n \u201cIt certainly wasn\u2019t as hard as he could\u2019ve done it, but it certainly wasn\u2019t a love tap. Truthfully, I\u2019d register it as a five [out of 10]. Which in the workplace, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s football or not, the boss can\u2019t strike an employee. And for a second, I couldn\u2019t believe it actually happened. Pardon my vulgarity, I said, \u2018Don\u2019t you ever fucking kick me again!\u2019 And his response was, \u2018I\u2019m the head ball coach, I\u2019ll kick you whenever the fuck I want.\u2019\u201d (Meyer denied the allegations.)<\/p>\n The fact that Lambo, his snapper, and his holder were witnesses in the arbitration suggests that the kicking of the kicker became a key component of the case for firing Meyer \u201cwith cause.\u201d <\/p>\n When the Jaguars fired Meyer, owner Shad Khan\u2019s spokesman insisted that the decision was not sparked by Lambo\u2019s claim<\/a> coming to light, four months after the incident occurred. Once the Jaguars embarked on an effort to not pay the balance of Meyer\u2019s contract, the reason for downplaying the connection<\/a> between publication and termination became clear. <\/p>\n The Jaguars couldn\u2019t credibly claim Meyer was fired \u201cwith cause\u201d over the incident from August, because they knew about it at the time and took no action. They needed to point to a broader pattern of conduct that, in combination, satisfied the contractual definition of \u201ccause.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the reality that the NFL\u2019s arbitration process is rigged against the employee. Coaches have no choice but to sign contracts that include arbitration provisions giving the Commissioner full power over the process. (McMurphy writes that an \u201cindependent arbitrator\u201d resolved Meyer\u2019s claim \u2014 it would be stunning, to say the least, if a truly independent party resolved the arbitration. It\u2019s more likely that the Commissioner exercised his prerogative to assign the case to someone who could be trusted to reach the right outcome for one of the people who pay the Commissioner\u2019s salary.)<\/p>\n Frankly, Meyer could have considered challenging the entire arbitration process in court \u2014 and still could. In recent cases (Jon Gruden and Brian Flores), the NFL\u2019s preferred system of being judge and jury for all employment claims has taken multiple body blows. <\/p>\n With more than $30 million riding on the outcome, it\u2019s worth Meyer and his lawyers considering a full-blown attack on a process that does not call for a truly independent arbitrator. Then again, it may not matter. <\/p>\n Given Meyer\u2019s various misadventures, if any coach ever satisfied the definition of being fired \u201cwith cause,\u201d it\u2019s him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than five years after Urban Meyer\u2019s disastrous stint as an NFL head coach ended following only 13…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-650654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}