Jalen Ramsey must have missed the memo that you should respect your elders.
The sophomore Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback was involved in an on-field altercation with Cincinnati Bengals star receiver A.J. Green during Sunday’s game and both players were ejected. Ramsey did not speak with the media following the 23-7 Jags victory, but the fifth-overall pick from 2016 broke his silence Wednesday and did so in spectacular fashion.
Ramsey started spitting hot fire facts when giving his breakdown of the fight and how it began.
“I told him almost every play that he was weak, that he was soft. Them is straight facts, he just couldn’t handle the truth,” Ramsey told reporters. “It was facts. I told him his time’s almost up. Told him that [covering him] was easy, which it was. He had one catch for six yards. I was just out there spitting facts to him.
“I pushed him every single play. I told him to stop putting his hand on me when it’s a run play. ‘Don’t even put your hand on me.’ So he put his hand on me, I pushed him again, he just fell because he’s weak. He’s small.”
Green, named to the Pro Bowl in each of his six seasons in the NFL, let his frustrations boil over.
“Some people are mentally strong. He wasn’t during the game,” the 23-year-old Ramsey said with a smirk. “I talked to a few of his teammates afterwards, a couple guys I know, and they had been telling me, ‘Once A.J. started talking back we knew you had him because he don’t ever talk,’ and I was like ‘yeah that’s kinda what I do every week.’
“I knew I had him to a point and then the stadium kinda helped me out because right before we went out there [for the final series of the second quarter] they showed the big highlight of me locking him down and his one catch for six yards, so I knew he was over there boiling. His teammates said he was over there pretty mad.”
Green, 29, channelled his inner Georges St-Pierre and attempted to lock in a choke on Ramsey and punched him a few times on the ground in the waning seconds of the opening half.
“If he was really ’bout it then he would’ve tried to square up with me, you know what I’m saying? But he walked behind me and did that little [expletive],” Ramsey added.
The Jaguars defence has played with swagger all season and Ramsey has emerged as one of the best shutdown corners in the entire league.
Green faces a possible fine for his actions but will not be suspended.
“I should have walked off in that situation,” Green said after the game. “It’s never going to happen again. I regret my actions. Whatever my punishments are I accept them because I put myself in that situation. … I’ve got to control my emotions better. I’ve got to handle my stuff better. I can’t put myself in a situation like that, hurt my team and not be able to play.”
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