Jaguars' Andrew Wingard Says Urban Meyer Threatened to Cut Him for Calling Him a ‘Rookie’ Coach

Urban Meyer will long go down in history as one of the worst head coaches in professional sports history, so it is only natural that stories are still coming out about his disastrous tenure with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The latest story comes from veteran safety Andrew Wingard, who relayed a run-in with Meyer to Tyler Dunne of Go Long. According to Wingard, the veteran defensive back said during a defensive meeting that the unit needed to do more to help a rookie quarterback in Trevor Lawrence and a rookie head coach in Meyer. 

The comment got back to Meyer, who then used his usual ego-trip and power-hungry style of coaching to lay down the law on Wingard, who was one of his defensive starters at the time.

“He says, ‘Dewey, why the hell did you call me a rookie head coach? Tell me why. If it was anybody else right now, you’d already be cut,’”Wingard recalled Meyer saying. “Explain yourself to me is essentially what he said. So I had to freaking save face and tell him how much I love him and how he’s the greatest coach ever. … You’re sitting there on your off-night chilling and you get a call from your head coach: ‘Hey, I’m going to cut you if you don’t apologize for calling me a rookie head coach.’”

The Jaguars fired Meyer after only 13 games and 336 days.

Meyer talked the talk in January when he was first introduced as head coach, but the former collegiate head coach simply never adjusted to the NFL. The list of grievances surrounding him since his hiring include the bizarre hiring of Chris Doyle, signing Tim Tebow, forcing Lawrence to split first-team reps with Gardner Minshew despite Minshew never being in the running for the job, skipping the team flight, offseason fines and the lost of future offseason practices, run-ins with players and staff, and much, much more.

"After deliberation over many weeks and a thorough analysis of the entirety of Urban’s tenure with our team, I am bitterly disappointed to arrive at the conclusion that an immediate change is imperative for everyone," Jaguars own Shad Khan said in a statement after Meyer's firing. "I informed Urban of the change this evening. As I stated in October, regaining our trust and respect was essential. Regrettably, it did not happen."

The incident Khan is referring to is, of course, Meyer's infamous bar incident in Columbus in the days following the Jaguars' Week 4 overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday Night Football.

Instead of flying back with the team, Meyer stayed behind to, as he described, visit with family. Instead, Meyer was caught on footage with a younger woman who was not his wife dancing near his lap. This wasn't the first in Meyer's laundry list of sins as Jaguars head coach, but it was one of the most significant as it led to Meyer losing the trust of his owner.