Former Jaguars kicker details incident where Urban Meyer kicked him

Former Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo revealed details about an incident in practice where head coach Urban Meyer kicked him. While stretching on the field, Lambo claims Meyer kicked him and told him to “make his f–ing kicks.”

Jaguars kicker’s claims about Urban Meyer

In the newest story to come out of the Jaguars’ organization that points to dysfunction with the team, Meyer appears to have made a very poor impression on the team’s former All-Pro kicker Josh Lambo.

Lambo was released from the team this season after a disastrous first three games. In the first two weeks he went 0-3 on field goal attempts. While he didn’t have a field goal attempt in week 3, he missed two extra point attempts in that game as well. Lambo was then released by the team and is currently a free agent.

The slow start and release from the team was a surprise given Lambo’s career up until that point. Lambo is still the fourth most accurate NFL kicker by percentage, and was named to the All-Pro team in 2019 after making 33 of 34 attempts on the season.

Now, Lambo is offering up another explanation for his dismissal from the team by claiming he upset Urban Meyer by standing up to him during a practice.

“I’m in a lunge position. Left leg forward, right leg back,” Lambo said via the Tampa Bay Times. “Urban Meyer, while I’m in that stretch position, comes up to me and says, ‘Hey Dips–t, make your f–ing kicks!’ And kicks me in the leg.”

Lambo detailed that Meyer would not use any of the team’s specialist position players by name.

“It was ‘Kicker, Punter, Long snapper,’” Lambo said. “Or S–tbag, Dips–t or whatever the hell it was.”

“It certainly wasn’t as hard as he could’ve done it, but it certainly wasn’t a love tap,” Lambo continued about the incident. “Truthfully, I’d register it as a five [out of 10]. Which in the workplace, I don’t care if it’s football or not, the boss can’t strike an employee. And for a second, I couldn’t believe it actually happened. Pardon my vulgarity, I said, ‘Don’t you ever f–ing kick me again!’ And his response was, ‘I’m the head ball coach, I’ll kick you whenever the f–k I want.’”

Meyer confronted Lambo about the incident

The next morning, Lambo said he was in a nutritional aisle at the team’s training facility making a smoothie when Meyer approached him out of earshot of the rest of the team.

“He sees me and I’m by myself and he kind of cornered me and comes up to me and says, ‘Are you going to put a smile on that face?’” Lambo said. “I said, ‘I’ll smile if you’ll stop kicking me.’”

“The details of the conversation I do remember, I was having issues with how he was coaching me throughout spring, throughout camp that I had kept to myself and I expressed a couple of those issues with the special teams coordinator, who related them to Urban, who seemingly halfway understood. His response was, ‘OK, you don’t like me doing this, OK. If you don’t like me doing that, fine. But if you ever speak to me like that again, you’ll be out of here. You’re the first player I’ve ever let speak to me that way in my career, and if you do it again, you’re gone.’”

“I said, ‘I’m genuinely not trying to be sarcastic here, Urban, but what did I say that offended you?’” Lambo remembered askingMeyer. “He said, ‘When you responded to me out there on the practice field in front of everybody. If you have an issue and don’t like me kicking you, well then you keep that to yourself and you wait until after practice and after meetings and you come find me in the office and tell me privately.’”

Lambo said he reported the incident to his agent, Richard Irvin, who contacted the Jaguars’ legal counsel the day after Meyer kicked him in warmups.

Both Irvin and the Jaguars confirmed that the legal counsel was contacted and offered Lambo a chance to meet with them. But Lambo said he has “no recollection of being able to speak with the Jags’ legal team.”