Urban Meyer had no idea who Aaron Donald, Deebo Samuel and Jamal Adams were prior to becoming the short-lived head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In Jayson Jenks and Mike Sando’s feature for The Athletic, apparently, former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer had no clue who NFL stars like Aaron Donald, Deebo Samuel and Jamal Adams were.
While Meyer admitted that he did not watch the NFL prior to getting the Jaguars gig, one would think players of this notoriety would have been on the most casual of NFL fans’ radars. Samuel had a breakout year with the San Francisco 49ers, but Donald is a legend for the Los Angeles Rams and Adams was a high-profile player coming out of college when he was with New York.
Meyer may have been a college guy through and through, but how did he not know about a Pitt legend, a standout safety from DBU and an unbelievable playmaker from South Carolina?
Urban Meyer had no clue who Aaron Donald, Deebo Samuel, Jamal Adams were
Hindsight is 20/20 but there were so many red flags when it came to Jacksonville hiring Meyer in the first place. While it is understandable for a college coach to not exhaust bandwidth on the NFL if they never plan on coaching there, it is just unfathomable that these former college stars were not even on his radar. These are Power Five schools that send players to the league regularly.
Even if Meyer had tunnel vision focusing solely on the Big Ten during his Ohio State run, it was not like this trio of players were overlooked in college. These were the best players on their respective teams as upperclassmen. This would be like admitting to not knowing an All-American offensive lineman or tight end from Iowa because he plays over in the Big Ten West. How was this possible?
Ultimately, the Jaguars are in far better shape with Doug Pederson than with Meyer. Pederson has been in the NFL for decades as an offensive-minded coach and a former backup quarterback before that. He won a Super Bowl in a very difficult place to do it in Philadelphia. If he can bring the Birds to the promised land, surely, Pederson can help return Jacksonville to national relevance.
Meyer proved that it is impossible to win games when you do know who the best players even are.