Urban Blight

Welcome again to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts deep dive the career and present legacy of collegiate and for the time-being NFL coach Urban Meyer. His tremendous on-field success at the reigns of Utah, Florida and Ohio State are perhaps only overshadowed by Meyer’s unseemly departures from the latter two programs. A tenure in Gainesville that yielded two national titles is blown up at the end by the toxic culture cultivated by Meyer’s lack of accountability or oversight for rampant off-field transgressions by his players. He later bolts Columbus following an explicit cover-up of domestic abuse by a prized assistant. This leads us to his maiden challenge in the pro’s as the current head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, a tenure just months in that is in serious jeopardy on the heals of an 0-5 start and much worse a post-game interaction with a female patron in Meyer’s own restaurant that appeared to be no less than wildly inappropriate and perhaps bordering on predatory. The question of Meyer’s future is a question about the very soul of college football, the media and how accountable we hold so-called “leaders of men.” Will the heretofore failure, both on and more importantly off the field, of an NFL Meyer experiment coupled with disgraced exits from multiple college jobs expel he and his shamed legacy from the sideline and/or commentary table going forward? First we rant, as Zak continues his offensive on the billionaire ruling class with a look into the Panama Papers and the contemptible means being taken to hide and withhold wealth; Ed considers the perilous state of what it is to be female in Texas and the unconscionable evil of those behind the Texas Heartbeat Act; Andrew examines a racist faux pas committed on-air during a nationally televised postseason contest and how Major League Baseball has no one to blame but themselves.