Former Colts Coach Chuck Pagano Jumps On The Urban Meyer Criticism Train

Former Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano didn’t hold back when discussing Urban Meyer on a podcast interview recently. Pagano said that if he, himself, had been caught in a similar situation as Meyer was recently, then he couldn’t even walk back into his own facility and face the team.

"You go in (to that locker room) and own that. Go in and own that (expletive). Tell the guys, 'I (expletive) up big time.'

"(Meyer should have said,) 'I don't know how I'm going to get your trust back because I'm telling you, 'Don't do this, don't do that,' especially with COVID going on. No one is talking about that, putting yourself in this situation. Go in and own it and hope time will heal all wounds, win some games and earn these guys' trust back. But I don't know how I could walk into that building."

Meyer was videotaped sitting on a barstool in his own Ohio restaurant while a young woman danced on his lap. Not only did Meyer’s actions cause a media firestorm in a league that hates distractions, but the entire situation is made worse by the fact that the Jaguars haven’t won a game and Meyer is a first-time NFL head coach.

Pagano didn’t make explicit assumptions about what led to Meyer’s poor decisions that evening, but he discussed the things that he used to tell his players headed into a bye week when he was coaching (the Jags had played on Thursday night that week before the incident).

Pagano said there were five things that could get you sideways when you had the weekend off in the NFL, and that Meyer “broke a lot of those”: alcohol, drugs, firearms, women, and the old adage, ‘nothing good happens after midnight.’

Meyer has publicly apologized to his team and front office, but has yet to win a game. The Jaguars lost to the Tennessee Titans 37-19 Sunday in Jacksonville.