Urban Meyer’s Lawyer Threatened Reporter Who Ran With The Josh Lambo Story

Urban Meyer last few days in Jacksonville were a microcosm of his entire tenure with the team – complete chaos.

It all ended shortly after Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reported that Meyer abused former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo prior to a team practice by kicking him during warmups.

On Tuesday, Rick Stroud had some telling information to share about how Urban Meyer and the Jaguars handled the Josh Lambo story.

Stroud shared how he was contacted by Jaguars ownership and Meyer’s lawyer before he ran with the story during an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show.

“Nobody is disagreeing the event happened,” said Stroud about the Lambo incident. “It’s just to what degree. If we’re talking about how hard he kicked a guy, that’s not a great argument on his behalf in my opinion.

“But when you hear the language, the bullying that goes on, not calling specialists by their names, you know this sort of… I mean I can only imagine what 18 through 21 year olds reacted to when they’re going through it at Bowling Green or Utah or Florida or Ohio State, but it doesn’t work at this level with professionals and he was his own worst enemy from the get-go.

“So it’s ironic, I think, that a specialist may have been the last straw, something that happened back in August.

Stroud would go on to talk about being cornered by Urban Meyer’s lawyer, specifically.

“During this whole drip, drip, drip process, everybody was using sources. (Meyer said) ‘Who are these people? If I catch the source, they’re gone.’ When the Jaguars organization was under fire, they want to offer up unnamed sources and players who will back the coach. (Lambo) was a guy who showed enough courage to put his name on the incident and speak on the record.

“I was willing to speak to them… It’s funny, because during this whole drip-drip-drip process, everybody was using sources. ‘Who are these people? If I catch this source he’s gone tomorrow.’ You hear this stuff from the Jaguars organization. Then when their guy’s under fire, they want to offer up unnamed sources and players that will back the coach, which is fine except that this was a guy who showed enough courage to put his name on the incident and was willing to speak on the record.”

Urban Meyer’s final day in Jacksonville consisted of going through his normal meetings on a Wednesday prior to ghosting his entire staff during the afternoon.

“I spoke numerous times to people about the details of the story, provided them with everything I had,” he continued. “They wanted an extension before we published until 4 p.m. We delayed it until 4:30. They were in scramble mode. This didn’t sound like a guy the owner had fired on Sunday. To what extent that contributed to it? I saw the reaction to the story from people. Maybe that had some impact, but Urban Meyer was solely focused on keeping his job because of Lambo’s comments and they had plenty of advanced notice about what that story would say.”

I think it’s safe to say that Rick Stroud leaking the Josh Lambo story put some added pressure on the Jaguars ownership to pull the plug on Urban Meyer sooner rather than later.

What a complete sh-t show of a tenure.


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