Shad Khan’s decision to fire former head coach Urban Meyer had less to do with football than it did everything else. He made that very clear with his latest comments.
“When you lose the respect, the trust and an issue of truthfulness, how can you work with someone like that?” Jaguars owner Shad Khan told Jarrett Bell of USA Today. “It’s not possible.”
The Jaguars and Khan reportedly have not reached an agreement on his buyout. The franchise do not want to pay Meyer, citing he was fired for cause.
“It was not about wins and losses,” Khan told Bell. “I think when you know someone is not truthful, how can you be around someone, OK? We had Doug Marrone here four years. We had Gus Bradley here four years. I have nothing but the utmost respect and friendship with them. That’s why they got the time, because it wasn’t a matter about respect or truth. It was a matter of wins and losses over four years. This is much bigger than that.”
Meyer was fired last December after coaching the Jaguars to a 2-11 record while also at the center of a string of negative headlines that included video of him getting frisky with a woman in a bar that wasn’t his wife. His wife Shelley was at home watching their grandkids at the time, she said in a since-deleted tweet.
But things became worse for Meyer after reports surfaced of him calling his assistant coaches “losers,” which he later denied, and got into a verbal spat with receiver Marvin Jones. Then, former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo alleged Meyer kicked him during a practice last August.
The Jaguars hired Doug Pederson, who won a Super Bowl with Philadelphia, as their new head coach in February.
