JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer lost his multimillion-dollar arbitration case against the NFL team that fired him with cause in 2021, a person familiar with the legal outcome said.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because both sides signed non-disclosure agreements preventing them from discussing the case publicly. The person said the case was settled in 2025, although On3 first reported it Monday.
The Jaguars declined comment, and a message to Meyer was not immediately returned.
Jaguars owner Shad Khan fired Meyer with cause in December 2021, hours after former Jaguars player Josh Lambo said Meyer kicked him during practice months earlier — the latest in a long list of embarrassments over Meyer’s 11-month tenure in Jacksonville.
Meyer tried to handle a professional team like he was on a college campus. He splashed slogans and catchphrases around the facility, instilled gimmicks in practice and repeated his misguided belief that coaches coach for players and players play for coaches. He brought in motivational speakers and kept blaming assistants for the team’s mounting losses instead of the grown men actually on the field.
One of Meyer’s most damning decisions came following a Thursday night game at Cincinnati in late September. He chose to stay behind with family instead of flying home with his team and then got caught on video the following night behaving inappropriately with a woman at a bar in Columbus, Ohio.
Bailing on his players showed just how out of touch Meyer was with NFL norms. And it was just one of many head-scratching choices for a coach who found so much college success — a combined three national titles — at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida and Ohio State.
Meyer challenged the firing, sending the dispute to arbitration. If successful, Meyer would have received the remainder of his five-year contract worth roughly $6 million annually.
Meyer and Lambo are still involved in a civil suit that is scheduled to go to trial in early August. Lambo voluntarily dropped the Jaguars from the lawsuit earlier this year.
Lambo is seeking more than $3.5 million in salary and damages for emotional distress caused by Meyer. According to the lawsuit filed in the 4th Judicial Circuit Court in Duval County, Lambo claims Meyer created a hostile work environment and says his performance suffered as a result of being kicked and verbally abused by Meyer.
Meyer, 61, is currently working as a college football analyst at Fox Sports and was inducted into the College Hall of Fame in December.
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FILE - Urban Meyer, a FOX Sports college football analyst, appears before an NCAA college football game between Michigan and Penn State in Ann Arbor, Mich., Oct. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota prosecutor on Monday announced charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in the nonfatal shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minnesota.
The officer, Christian Castro, is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said at a news conference. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
“Mr. Castro is an ICE agent, but his federal badge does not make him immune from state charges for his criminal conduct in Minnesota,” Moriarty said, adding that Sosa-Celis never posed a threat and that her office received no cooperation from the federal government. “There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal officers who commit crimes in this state or any other.”
Castro shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after he and another officer chased a different man to the apartment duplex where the man and Sosa-Celis lived, Moriarty said, noting that both Sosa-Celis and the other man were legally in the U.S.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the incident. But a federal judge later dismissed the charges and federal officials opened an investigation into whether two immigration officers lied about what happened.
Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department officials didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment. DHS previously said that lying under oath is a “serious federal offense” and that making false statements could result in an officer being fired or prosecuted.
The administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Donald Trump’s national deportation campaign. DHS, which oversees ICE, called Operation Metro Surge its largest immigration enforcement operation ever and deemed it a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers provoked mass unrest and questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over which has the authority to investigate and prosecute officers for conduct while on duty. The Trump administration has suggested that Minnesota officials don’t have jurisdiction.
State officials, though, have said they don’t trust the federal government to investigate itself or hold officers accountable.
“There’s no modern precedent for what happened to the people here in Minnesota,” Moriarty said Monday. “So it requires a lot of us to dig in and look at ways to hold people accountable that we probably never thought we would be looking at in our careers.”
Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, has been conducting investigations into multiple incidents during the crackdown. Moriarty's office last month charged Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with two counts of second-degree assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway, but he is still at large. She said Monday that her office has made “substantial progress” in apprehending him.
The county continues to investigate Good's and Pretti’s killings and sued the administration in March over access to evidence in the two cases and the one involving Sosa-Celis. Although Moriarty hasn't charged anyone in either killing, she has said she's confident her office's investigations will bring transparency, even if not criminal prosecution.
Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa.
FILE - Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explains her progressive approach to prosecutions, June 19, 2024, at her office in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave, File)
