Life After Jalen Ramsey: Jaguars Locker Room Addresses Trade
From April 28, 2016 to Oct. 15, 2019, Jalen Ramsey was a Jacksonville Jaguar. For 1,266 days, he was the face of the franchise and the vocal voice of the locker room.
That all ended on Tuesday night when the Jaguars traded the disgruntled cornerback to the Los Angeles Rams for first-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021, along with a fourth-round pick in 2021. After three full seasons and six games into 2019, Ramsey was no longer the face or voice of the Jaguars.
And on Wednesday, the teammates who are left in the wake of the trade to pick up the pieces and keep the Jaguars afloat spoke on the trade, the vibe in the locker room and if it was a distraction to the team.
From defensive to offensive players, rookies to veterans and first-year teammates and those who were with Ramsey for all 1,266 days, the answers ranged.
There was a sense of disappointment in the air when walking around the locker room Wednesday. Not disappointment in Ramsey or his actions over the last month in his attempt to seek a trade — no players publicly bashed Ramsey — but more so disappointment in the loss of someone they went to battle with each day, sans the last three weeks of course.
“I’m not too happy about it because that’s my teammate,” linebacker Myles Jack said. “I didn’t want to see him go. It wasn’t a distraction to us. As long as he was in the locker room, he was still part of the team in my eyes. He was just getting his affairs in order. I guess the higher powers made the decision to move on. I guess it’s just time to move on.”
Jack entered the NFL in the same draft class as Ramsey. For each game outside of the Jaguars' last three, the two shared a field and stood together on elite defensive units. Another player who was about of that draft class was Yannick Ngakoue, who shared in Jack's disappointment.
"It hurts because that's a guy I got drafted with. But business is business," Ngakoue said.
"I was hoping that he didn't get traded. Both of us, we have mutual respect for each other as far as being one of the best in the game in our opinions. It hurts seeing him leave that quick."
Defensive end Calais Campbell, one of the unquestioned leaders of the Jacksonville locker room, compared the trade to when the team traded defensive end Dante Fowler Jr. to the same Rams team before the 2018 trade deadline.
For Campbell, a 12-year veteran, it is simply the business of the NFL. Sometimes a brother and a teammate can be in the locker room one day and gone the next.
“It’s been a couple weeks where you knew it was a possibility. When it actually happened, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, 'Man, it's one of the parts of the game. It doesn't happen too often, but it does happen," Campbell said Wednesday.
"(He was) a good player, a guy that was fun to be teammates with for a few years. But at the end of the day, we've got to focus on what's ahead of us. In my mind, it's kind of like a guy getting injured. You just don't him; he's not available to you anymore. You've just got to move on. Next man up."
Running back Leonard Fournette, one of the players who was the closest with Ramsey in the entire locker room, was not asked questions by media on Wednesday, but he let his sadness in the loss of Ramsey be known quickly following the trade.
One of the most circulated images on social media since the Ramsey trade has been a picture of the Jaguars' 2017 secondary. Among the five starters, all have now departed the team except for cornerback A.J. Bouye.
“I ain’t going to say it’s really relief. Like I said, it’s funny, this morning I actually looked at a picture of me, AC, Gip, Jalen and it’s like, dang, I’m the only one still here," Bouye said Wednesday. "It’s just times change in two to three years and you just have to move on with it, adjust to it, and accept how it is.”
Bouye said the energy on the field will not change much without Ramsey, largely because of the fact that he hasn't played since Week 3. But it will be a different energy in the locker room, he said.
"I feel like it has been the same the last few weeks because he hasn't been playing. But he has been showing up. It is just going to be different because he is not in the locker room anymore," he said.
Rookie quarterback Gardner Minshew has dominated headlines since taking over as Jacksonville's starting quarterback following the injury of Nick Foles in Week 1. Minshew and the other rookies on the team have not spent years with Ramsey like Ngakoue, Jack and Bouye have, but they still had a message for his departure.
“We wish him well," Minshew said. "It’s part of the deal, but we have 52 dudes in the locker room that we feel comfortable going and winning with, so that’s all we’re really concerned with now.”
After 1,266 days, Ramsey is no longer a Jaguar. His locker will no longer be near Jack's, Ngakoue's, or anyone else's Jacksonville. And on Wednesday, his teammates opened up about the trade of their teammate, friend and brother.
Do not expect the Jaguars locker room to address Ramsey much moving forward. Today was likely the last day the cornerback would be the hottest topic at TIAA Bank Field.
Sure, people will never stop talking about the trade and Ramsey's toxic final month in Jacksonville, but the men in the Jaguars locker room still have 10 games to play. They are 2-4 and have to turn their season around. Moving forward, that is their focus.
But on Wednesday, the focus was still on life after Ramsey. And understandably so. Now, the team will have to move forward and put this experience behind them.
"Just part of being able to come together as one is when bad things happen, you know, it is just sticking together, coming together and you are using each other in the locker room to kind of get over certain things," right guard Will Richardson said.
"Yeah Jalen is gone but you know like I said, in this league it is just one of those things where you have to step up and it is next man up.”
