The Urban Meyer era in Jacksonville was one to forget for the Jaguars, but not before safety Andrew Wingard shared a rather revealing story about his former head coach. Speaking with Tyler Dunne of Go Long, Wingard shed some light on what it was like to play for Meyer in the NFL.
Wingard's story begins following the Jaguars' 31-7 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in 2021. Jacksonville was 1-6, and the defense held a meeting to get on the same page. Wingard said he shared some rather innocuous remarks about supporting Meyer and quarterback Trevor Lawrence in their first NFL seasons, but he quickly found out that he would have to walk on eggshells around Meyer.
After accurately referring to Meyer as a "rookie head coach" in the meeting, Wingard received an ominous phone call that evening.
"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 recounted to Dunne. "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 next day, Wingard spent some time doing damage control. According to Dunne, Wingard "told Meyer everything he wanted to hear" while trying to keep his spot on the team.
Meyer was fired after 13 games and later replaced by Super Bowl-winning coach Doug Pederson. Almost immediately, the Jaguars saw improvement across the board. In 2022, Jacksonville went 9-8, won the AFC South and defeated the Los Angeles Chargers in the Wild Card round.
