In today’s installment of ‘Reasons Urban Meyer Should Not Only Be Fired, But Fired Into the Sun,’ we have an alleged battery by the ol’ ball coach to former Jaguars kicker, Josh Lambo. Lambo told Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times that during an August warmup this preseason, Urban Meyer kicked him in his leg, and while not as hard as he possibly could, according to Lambo, it wasn’t a ‘love tap.’
Former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo tells @NFLSTROUD that Urban Meyer kicked him during an August warmup this preseason https://t.co/JoN0UDdVz1 pic.twitter.com/aqFS4HScCL
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) December 15, 2021
According to Lambo, Meyer’s kick in the leg was provoked by a pair of missed field goals in the Jacksonville Jaguars’ first two preseason games. Lambo went on to tell Stroud that in addition to physically striking Lambo, Meyer minimized his special teams’ players by refusing to refer to them by their names.
โIt was โKicker, Punter, Long snapper,โโ Lambo said. โOr S–tbag, Dips–t or whatever the hell it was.โ
Lambo, the former All-Pro and the fourth-most accurate place-kicker in league history, was cut by Jacksonville in October after Matthew Wright drilled a pair for field goals from beyond 50 yards in the Jaguars victory over the Miami Dolphins in London. Lambo was inactive the previous three games for personal reasons.
According to Stroud, Urban Meyer has denied Josh Lambo’s recounting of the alleged incident:
โJoshโs characterization of me and this incident is completely inaccurate, and there are eyewitnesses to refute his account,โ Meyer said. โ(General manager) Trent (Baalke) and I met with him on multiple occasions to encourage his performance, and this was never brought up. I was fully supportive of Josh during his time with the team and wish him nothing but the best.โ
But, it doesn’t end there, and this is where this begins to jive with some recent comments that Meyer made in the media that I’ll touch on later. Lambo described their subsequent encounter after the alleged kick in practice like this:
โHe sees me, and Iโm by myself, and he kind of cornered me and comes up to me and says, โAre you going to put a smile on that face?โโ Lambo said. โI said, โIโll smile if youโll stop kicking me.โโ
Lambo explained that he took his displeasure for Urban’s coaching tactics to the Jaguars special teams coordinator, Nick Sorensen, who related Lambo’s concerns to Meyer. According to Lambo, Sorensen returned to him with this message from Meyer:
โ’OK, you donโt like me doing this, OK. If you donโt like me doing that, fine. But if you ever speak to me like that again, youโll be out of here. Youโre the first player Iโve ever let speak to me that way in my career, and if you do it again, youโre gone.โโ
This is where Meyer’s comments begin to align and validate Lambo’s allegations. Remember this?
Jaguars coach Urban Meyer on fixing what's wrong: "What's the answer? Starting leaking some information or nonsense? That's garbage. … If there is a source, then that source is unemployed. I mean, within seconds."
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) December 12, 2021
Urban Meyer continues to prove to the world that he’s a Grade-A jacka … jerk, who doesn’t deserve to be employed by any football team at any age level. If Meyer is walking around kicking and threatening grown adults in the NFL, imagine what he was like when coaching kids whose scholarships, educations, and football futures were in the palm of his hands to dangle over their heads.