Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer coached Alex Smith when the quarterback was at Utah and helped develop him into a player who went first overall in the draft.
Meyer is now embarking on his first season as an NFL head coach and he is going to have another first overall pick as the team’s top quarterback. During an appearance on Michael Irvin’s podcast, Meyer said that he wouldn’t mind having Smith on hand as a backup and mentor to Trevor Lawrence.
As of now, Smith has not made any announcement about continuing to play after returning to action last year for the first time since his serious 2018 leg injury. If he does make that call, it sounds like Meyer and General Manager Trent Baalke will be giving him a call.
“I wanted him here,” Meyer said, via USAToday.com. “You know, we talked to him about joining here. He’s had a tough injury. Of all the players I’ve ever coached, and I would tell people this when people didn’t know how tough he was, he’s one of the toughest cats I’ve ever been around. . . . We had conversations with him. There are some medical people in our organization that were very concerned. And remember, our G.M. actually drafted Alex at San Francisco. So you have two people in Jacksonville that love Alex. It was that was deeper than a player, now. He’s like our family. Both of us feel so strongly about them. But that’s something that we’re just going to keep an eye on because I hope he comes back.”
The Jaguars currently have Gardner Minshew, C.J. Beathard, and Jake Luton on the depth chart at quarterback.