Urban Meyer: internal conversations have been “horrible”

Jaguars coach Urban Meyer will meet reporters on Wednesday. In the meantime, he has run his weekly radio show. And, obviously, he touched on what quickly became the NFL’s biggest controversy.

Via Mark Long of the Associated Press, Meyer said that internal conversations about his misadventures in Ohio “were horrible. He said he had to ‘move forward and regain the confidence’ of the organization.

“The locker room has been my whole life,” said Meyer, “how we build it, how we treat it, how we gain their trust.”

As team owner Shad Khan made clear in the statement he released on Tuesday, Meyer wasted that trust.

Some will raise eyebrows at Meyer’s attempt to impose the responsibility of getting things back on track with the players.

“Ownership of this team is with the players,” said Meyer, regarding the issue of preparing the team to face the Titans on Sunday. “I don’t think it’s in my camp. . . . The leaders of the team will make this decision. It depends on how much trust you have built with them, how we structure everything this week and how we focus on winning this game. . . . I will be as clear as possible. Our staff are working very hard. But you know as well as I do that the ownership of this team belongs to the players. “

It’s a copout, frankly. The coach drives the bus, not the players. Yes, the players need to be fully engaged. This week their trainer interfered with their ability to do so. At a time when they should prepare for the Titans – and avoid becoming the third team in NFL history to lose 20 straight – their coach made a bizarre unforced error that created a major internal distraction . It’s on Meyer and no one else.