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Report: Urban Meyer is being pursued by multiple NFL teams
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New job rumors have always, and will always, circulate around retired big-name coaches with good tread left on their tires, and at the moment Urban Meyer fits the profile like few others.
According to persistent reports, Meyer is considering seriously a return to coaching, but this time in the National Football League, a level he’s never experienced even as an assistant. Based on the latest dispatch out of CBS Sports, the former Florida Gator and Ohio State Buckeye’s chief is being pursued both by the Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Chargers.
Former college coach Urban Meyer formally interviewed with Jaguars owner Shad Khan on Friday, league sources said, and continues to be viewed far and wide as the frontrunner for that job, should he want it.
Meyer, who has been talking to associates and former assistants as he mulls the composition of a potential NFL staff, has also informed others that he has a strong possibility to coach the Chargers, league sources said, although the veracity of that sentiment is being disputed.
Meyer has twice retired from college college football because of physical and mental health issues while he had his programs at the top of the sport.
As a television analyst during his retirement years Meyer has spoken openly about a habitual tendency to get consumed by the job, haunted to the point of insomnia and panic by losses, and a debilitating fear of not doing enough to win every week that grows so consuming it becomes impossible to enjoy big victories and massive success.
How would Meyer do jumping to a game contingent year to year on roster compositions and salary caps? A league defined by parity. Even the best NFL coaches frequently lose six, seven, even eight games in a down season, and often miss the playoffs. Meyer would be signing on with two franchises with long histories of both regular and post-season mediocrity.
At the college level Meyer lost five games in a season only once, and it was a glaring aberration on his resume. Over 17 college campaigns Meyer went 187-32—good for an eighty-five percent winning frequency—while bringing home seven conference titles and raising three national championship banners.
If the NFL comes calling, how long would Meyer last? We may soon have an answer.
Mark Schipper is a reporter, sportswriter, and aspiring novelist living in Chicago, Illinois.