That had to be tongue in cheek, right? I mean, ANYONE who even KINDA follows pro football knows who #99 on the Rams is. There's got to be no way he didn't know who Aaron Donald is.
Jaguars fire Urban Meyer
- Thread starter Mystic Merlin
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lol yeah there is just no way that's serious.
Who is this #12 guy on Tampa? I heard he's been having a solid season.
If it gives more context, the preceding paragraph says:
I'm trusting Mike Sando and Jayson Jenks know enough when reporting a story to distinguish between sarcasm and genuine ignorance, but maybe there was some confusion on that part.
Or maybe Urban Meyer was so ignorant of other big name players that even when he tried to make a joke about Donald it was completely misunderstood as ignorance.
It had to be a joke. I mean, Aaron Donald is one of the most well-known players in the entire league. People who actually don't know anything about football still know who he is. I can understand not knowing who Lawrence Guy is, but Aaron Donald? No way. I refuse to believe that.
In the article, it's revealed that Meyer also didn't know that Donald was never voted Ram of the Week.
Early on he was a good coach, or at least good at hiring innovative offensive assistants. Also, he got the best recruits, he got the best assistants, his schools propped up the program with tons of money.
Additionally, being a bully and threatening to dump guys at any time works a lot better in college, when you're dealing with unpaid students who can't afford to stay in college without the scholarship and the whole system is built to let you exploit them, versus the NFL where guys have guaranteed money, there is a cap, the pool of players is small, you have to sign free agents, the coaches have other options for the same or more money (a WR coach in the NFL could be a college OC for more money pretty easily).
Right, which is why I say one possibility is that by the time he made the remark, Meyer had shown himself to be so wholly unfamiliar with other star players that his staff could perceive ignorance of Aaron Donald as totally plausible, even if he was joking
yeah, if you have any doubt what he really means by "boys from the South" recognize he is saying this to a guy who is from TN and Georgia, who went to College in the South
Very possible this is being blown out of proportion. But even if that's true, it demonstrates how much disrespect there is for Urban Meyer in the clubhouse. It seems like it might be one of those situations where some players dislike him so much, that they can't stand anything he says or does or they interpret things in the least generous way possible. For example, the incident with him and kicker Josh Lambo which ended up being the final straw - I can totally see someone doing something like that in jest and another coach doing it and getting away with it with a smile in both directions.
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He was considered an offensive guru during his two years at Utah and was likely the primary reason Alex Smith was drafted #1. There were rumors of a toxic culture and racism while he was at Utah but nothing ever came of it because he left after only two years for Florida.
Yeah, at the end of the day, if there’s any question whether a head coach could recognize the best defensive player of the last decade, that’s already an L.
What I meant was the statement could have been a complete joke, as others upthread have already mentioned, and people are taking it out of context. You see that sometimes when there's intense dislike between people. Belichick could make that exact same statement, and no one would misconstrue what he was saying. And no one here would be calling his statement an L.
I think we all understand what you are saying.
The problem with your analogy is that Urban Meyer is not Bill Belichick.
That's exactly my point. It shows how disrespected he is in the clubhouse - it doesn't matter if it was a joke or not.
I think that's pretty highly likely to be the case. Likewise he recruited Jamal Adams to Ohio State--I doubt he's such a dope he just forgot about one of the better safeties in the league who he'd recruited (and one of the best players on one of the best teams in college football when he was also coaching college football). I imagine myers said something like "what's the deal with 99, i hear he's pretty good--you guys have a plan for him?" kind of making the point through understatement.
We should all know by now (thinking of Tito in particular) that the "look at how dumb the coach who just got fired" story is that comes out a month or two after a guy gets fired is not exactly an exercise in fairness.
To make a point that's broader than football, I think that in life in a lot of fields folks can get to a position of prominence/influence/power that their competence actually doesn't even matter. You have the name, you have the assistants run the show, you're programs that historically do a great job recruiting--your team is likely going to be pretty good. I've seen pretty detached people remain influential people in corporations, investment banks, law firms, universities, etc.
Yes, my point as well - if people are twisting your jokes like that as a coach, whatever a reason for the twist or misunderstanding, you’re already losing.