It wouldn’t be fair to say that Urban Meyer was fired by the Jacksonville Jaguars because of the allegation that he kicked former kicker Josh Lambo during warmups. But it would be fair to say that Lambo’s allegation was the final in an ever-growing list of incidents and reports that made it untenable for Shad Khan to continue to employ Meyer any longer during a season in which the team was 2-11.
In the bombshell he dropped with the Tampa Bay Times, Lambo also shared some reported quotes from Meyer that paint a clear picture of a person who doesn’t see any problem with pushing others around.
“It certainly wasn’t as hard as he could’ve done it, but it certainly wasn’t a love tap. Truthfully, I’d register it as a five (out of 10). Which in the workplace, I don’t care if it’s football or not, the boss can’t strike an employee. And for a second, I couldn’t believe it actually happened. Pardon my vulgarity, I said, ‘Don’t you ever f***ing kick me again!’ And his response was, “I’m the ball coach, I’ll kick you whenever the f*** I want.”
Lambo later spoke with First Coast News to talk about why he decided to come forward. He said that reading the report of Meyer calling his assistant coaches “losers” is what made him want to speak up. The former kicker didn’t mince words, saying that he thinks Urban is “unfit” to coach in the NFL.
“For me, I would say completely unfit and that is my observation from what I saw day in and day out for a lot of months this year,” Lambo said. “The way that he treats the guys in the locker room, there’s this pompous nature that he has that he can get away with anything.”
Meyer recently lobbed a threat at anyone within the organization that if they leaked info to the press they would be fired, which Lambo saw as more proof that the coach hated any form of a challenge from underlings.
“He’s trying to shut everybody else up and he tried to shut me up once,” Lambo said. “I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. … My observation of it was he couldn’t stand being challenged. His manhood, his pride, and his ego were challenged, and so he threatened me.”
“I feel like I’ve embodied the Jacksonville Jaguars DNA since I’ve been here. I hope the fans have seen that, people in the community have seen that. I’m not trying to start a war with anybody. I’m not trying to pick a fight. But if someone’s going to pick a fight with my people, I’m not going to back down. And that’s why I feel that what I’m doing is not only acceptable but important,” Lambo said. “I want the Jaguars to do well. I want that franchise to do well. As far as I’m concerned, they deserve a lot better.”
