Jaguars owner Shad Khan rolling the dice with Urban Meyer gamble

Urban Meyer’s hiring in Jacksonville feels like some Florida gator bait.

Billionaire Jaguars owner Shad Khan is going with experience and baggage over young talent and a fresh start.

He’s entrusted his franchise’s most critical turning point to a 56-year-old who has never coached in the NFL and who left two major college programs at Florida and Ohio State with championships but also scandals, controversies and alleged health issues in his wake.

“Urban Meyer is who we want and need, a leader, winner and champion who demands excellence and produces results,” Khan said in a statement Thursday night.

The hiring is almost more befitting of the English Premier League, where Khan owns Fulham F.C., and where it’s common to shell out big money for big-name managers to roam the sidelines in the hopes of reinvigorating a fan base and team.

Meyer has never coached in the NFL, though. He is a big name in college football. He is an unknown commodity in the pros. And the EPL teams that normally land the big-name managers are the heavyweights.

The Jaguars are coming off a 1-5 season and have gone 12-36 the past three years.

Meyer is coming back for this job and this job only, however, because if a college coach is ever going to take his first stab at the NFL, Jacksonville’s situation provides the dream scenario to do so.

The Jags have the No. 1 overall pick in April’s NFL Draft, which means they will land Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence. They have 11 draft picks total in 2021, including two in the first round and five of the first 65.

They project to have a league-high $73 million in salary cap space, assuming a $176 million base cap, per overthecap.com, though the NFL’s cap hasn’t been finalized yet.

And there is good young talent on the roster already, such as running back James Robinson, wide receivers D.J. Chark Jr. and Laviska Shenault Jr., edge rushers Josh Allen and K’Lavon Chaisson, linebacker Myles Jack, and corner C.J. Henderson.

The big question now, though, is whether Meyer is the right person to turn this around.

For one, Meyer’s three national championships are scarred by what happened under his watch off the field.

More than 30 Florida players were reportedly arrested during Meyer’s six seasons in Gainesville, some charged with crimes ranging from misdemeanor battery to felony domestic assault and theft.

The late Aaron Hernandez, whose history of transgressions only became clear years later, played for Meyer at Florida and once was questioned by police but never charged following a shooting in Gainesville.

More recently, Meyer’s Ohio State tenure ended in scandal.

Meyer was placed on administrative leave and suspended for three games in 2018 over allegations that he was aware of fired Ohio State assistant Zach Smith’s history of abuse of his then-wife Courtney.

Meyer, who had employed Smith at Florida, too, allegedly was aware of abuse in both 2009 and 2015 but had continued to employ Smith on his Buckeyes staff. Meyer denied knowledge of the 2015 incident, but Courtney Smith made public that she had told Meyer’s wife, Shelley, of both instances of abuse.

At the end of that 2018 Ohio State season, Meyer abruptly retired citing health reasons. Then he transitioned to Fox Sports as a college football analyst, while serving as an assistant athletic director for Ohio State.

Now he’s testing the waters of the NFL, hoping they’ll wash his legacy clean, perhaps. It helps that he’s going to Jacksonville. He wouldn’t last a day in New York walking in with this resume.

The college to pro jump is nothing new. The Carolina Panthers’ Matt Rhule just took the leap from Baylor one year ago.

There are some who have done it successfully, such as Jimmy Johnson (Miami to the Dallas Cowboys) and Tom Coughlin (Boston College to the Jags and Giants). Pete Carroll’s second round with the Seattle Seahawks after building his USC empire has gone better than well.

But Nick Saban’s brief, unsuccessful stint with the Miami Dolphins (15-17 in 2005-06), and Steve Spurrier’s similarly short experience in Washington (12-20 in 2002-03), are cautionary tales.

Meyer won’t be able to recruit in the pros like he does in college. Player acquisitions are about money and the draft, not connections in certain areas of the country.

Plus, a lot of these Jaguars players may be young but they are paid professionals, not amateur college athletes. Meyer will have to earn his authority in an NFL locker room. It will not be similarly inherent to his position on the team.

Khan said he has control of the roster as the owner, but Meyer wouldn’t take this job without having significant say in running the program. They’ll soon hire a GM, which could be either Browns GM Ray Farmer, former Chiefs GM Scott Pioli, or Jags director of player personnel Trent Baalke.

Meyer takes the first of the seven head coaching vacancies available. Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is believed to be the hottest commodity at the moment, and once he lands somewhere, the dominoes could fall.

It is believed that Smith is a leading contender for the Atlanta Falcons job.

In Jacksonville on Thursday, meanwhile, Khan believes he made a statement that he’s going for it all by landing a big fish.

It remains to be seen just who will end up on the hook at the end of the line, though: Meyer, or the Jaguars themselves.

GM SEATS FILLING UP

The Detroit Lions hired Los Angeles Rams scouting director Brad Holmes, 41, on Thursday as their next general manager to succeed the fired Bob Quinn. Holmes becomes the NFL’s third Black GM, along with the Miami Dolphins’ Chris Grier and the Cleveland Browns’ Andrew Berry.

The Rams will receive a compensatory third-round pick in each of the next two NFL Drafts per the revised terms of the NFL’s Policy on Equal Employment and Workplace Diversity to encourage hirings of non-white candidates to fill head coach and GM vacancies.

“Several weeks ago when we embarked on this process, it was critical that we find the right person to fit our vision for this team,” Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp said in a statement. “It was evident early on that Brad is a proven leader who is ready for this opportunity.”

It is also expected that the Atlanta Falcons will hire New Orleans Saints VP/assistant GM Terry Fontenot as their new GM once the Saints’ playoff run is over. Fontenot, 40, would become the NFL’s fourth Black GM. Similar to the Rams, then, the Saints would receive a compensatory third-round pick in each of the next two NFL Drafts once the Falcons officially hire Fontenot.

Meanwhile, the Carolina Panthers announced that they have offered their GM position to Seattle Seahawks VP of football operations Scott Fitterer. The team’s announcement prior to his official hiring was unusual, but Fitterer, 47, is expected to take the job and pair with Carolina’s second-year head coach Rhule.

This activity came after the Denver Broncos hired Minnesota Vikings assistant GM George Paton to be their GM on Wednesday and work in conjunction with John Elway, the Broncos’ president of football operations. Elway stepped out of the Broncos’ GM seat recently. Elway will still have a strong voice, but Paton, 50, will be in charge of the roster.

“In many ways, I feel like this team is a sleeping giant,” Paton said in a statement.

The Houston Texans already hired Nick Caserio, 45, the New England Patriots’ director of player personnel, as their GM. So assuming Fitterer accepts the Panthers job, the only GM vacancies remaining are in Jacksonville and Washington.