It seems the first shoe in head coach free agency will drop on Thursday, with the Jaguars reportedly set to hire former Florida and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer as their next head coach:
Meyer lands probably the most fascinating head coach opening of the seven available positions, featuring the No. 1 overall pick - almost certainly used on generational QB talent Trevor Lawrence - and upwards of $75 million in cap room. It's a big gamble on a first-time NFL coach, but it's a great situation for Meyer.
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So... why is this good news for the Eagles?
Because the Eagles never cared about Urban Meyer.
The Birds have been linked to 11 different possible head coaching candidates since they fired Doug Pederson, but Meyer didn't land on that list. He was viewed as a frontrunner for the Jaguars job almost immediately, and the Eagles were never interested.
There was, of course, a chance that once the Jaguars brought Meyer in - or some other impressive, NFL-tested coaches in - they might cool on the idea of hiring Meyer, who hasn't coached since 2018 after he resigned from his Ohio State job because he allegedly knew about domestic violence allegations against an OSU staff member years before the staff member was fired.
NFL
Now there are just six head coaching vacancies left, which means the Eagles have marginally less competition for one of the top names still on the board.
If I told you that the Eagles can hire one of:
- Eric Bieniemy
- Arthur Smith
- Robert Saleh
- Brian Daboll
- Todd Bowles
- Duce Staley
...you'd probably be fairly happy, considering the late-start nature of the search.
That's now the team's situation. We'll see how things shake out.
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