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Jaguars CB Jalen Ramsey rips Ravens’ Joe Flacco: “He sucks”

NFL: Jacksonville Jaguars-Minicamp Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

In a recent interview with GQ, Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey had some strong opinons on teams and quarterbacks around the league. He trashed the Browns in a fair but unwarranted pot shot, buried Buffalo’s Josh Allen, and also went after Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco among a few others.

To summarize, in speaking on his high opinion of Lamar Jackson, Ramsey makes it clear he thinks the rookie will be unseating Baltimore’s starter sooner than later:

There are a few ways of looking at something like this, the first of which being that it’s refreshing to see an athlete give actual opinions on things as opposed to the coach speak we’re usually subjected to. The other way of looking at it is that Ramsey isn’t really being 100% honest in this interview.

Starting with Flacco, the shot across the bow was unprovoked but pretty par for the course these days. Although, it’s interesting he mentions that he played him twice in a row without also acknowledging the first encounter was a loss in which Flacco orchestrated a game winning drive against Jacksonville’s vaunted defense.

However, what’s somewhat frustrating about all of this is Ramsey being lauded for his honesty when there are parts of this that are either the opposite of honest, or just plain wrong. He goes on to call Atlanta’s Matt Ryan (after being reminded what his name was) “overrated,” and a “complete bust” in 2017 even though the veteran threw 20 touchdowns and won a playoff game in what was actually an underrated season.

But the real kicker there is what he goes on to say regarding the quarterback that plays on his team:

“Blake do what he gotta do… I think in crunch time moments, like last year’s playoff game—not as a team, because we would have trusted him—but I think as an organization, we should have trusted him more to keep throwing it. We kinda got complacent and conservative. And I think that’s why we lost. We started running it on first and second down, throwing it on third down, every single time we were out there. [The Patriots] caught on to that.”

All I’ll say there is that there’s a reason why Jacksonville’s coaching staff wouldn’t let him Bortles cut it loose in Foxboro and it’s not because of suspect play calling like Ryan had to endure. He would later go to on to say that “playoff Blake is good” which sounds like a similar defense to a quarterback he ripped earlier in this piece, and that’s despite Bortles only having one appearance and two wins.

None of this is intended as a takedown of Bortles, or even Ramsey who is an amazing player with a nice knack for smack talk. I’ll say this though; fans and players of opposing teams remember when you run your mouth about their favorite players and teammates, and he better be ready to back all of this up when the season begins.