Talk is cheap: Jags should heed lesson
Jarrett Bell: After ousting overconfident Steelers, Jaguars meet Patriots
Imagine Bill Belichick playing the video clip to make a point during a New England Patriots team meeting as they ramp up for yet another AFC Championship Game.
It’s Jalen Ramsey, full of youthful vigor and bravado, during the celebration at EverBank Field on Sunday night, after the Jacksonville Jaguars’ return from Pittsburgh and their smackdown of the careless Steelers.
“Y’all make sure y’all bring that same energy out here next week and the week after,” Ramsey, the all-pro cornerback, shouted to fawning fans.
“Y’all make sure y’all bring that same energy out here next week and the week after. We’re going to the Super Bowl.” Jalen Ramsey Jaguars cornerback, to fawning fans after beating the Steelers in a divisional playoff game on Sunday
“We’re going to the Super Bowl. And we’re going to win that bitch!”
Tsk, tsk.
Ramsey pulled a Le’Veon Bell — intentionally or not — showering the Patriots with a helping of disrespect.
Ramsey should be confident, and it was probably easy to get caught up in the emotion of the moment. Jacksonville hasn’t been to an AFC title game since the 1999 season. But there’s something to be said for the one-game-andit-might-be-over aspect of the NFL playoffs. Maybe that’s why they don’t stage rallies to celebrate divisional playoff wins in Foxborough, Mass.; they wait to have Super Bowl parades in Boston.
You’ll never hear one of Belichick’s players publicly looking past an opponent. That’s part of the Patriot Way and a detail worth emulating. Belichick also gives the Pats talking point for interviews, which is why they sometimes come off like Team Cyborg. Nobody outwardly respects opponents like Belichick, who spoke so glowingly about the Tennessee Titans last week that you would’ve thought he was talking about Vince Lombardi’s Packers.
Contrast that to an environment where too many people value in-yourface putdowns or are emboldened to spew hate on any number of platforms to express themselves.
But these NFL playoffs have provided a Lip Service 101 lesson: Respect > sound bites.
Remember Titans safety, Kevin Byard, who talked about turning Tom Brady into Blake Bortles? Now Byard can watch Brady vs. Bortles.
The Jaguars know. They hung one on a Steelers team that had players and a head coach with the audacity to overlook them.
Bell tweeted that the Steelers, drubbed by Jacksonville in Week 5 and TKO’d by New England in Week 15, would have “Round 2s” in consecutive games — as if the Jags were an afterthought.
Safety Mike Mitchell’s antics were worse. He basically guaranteed to Sports Illustrated that the Steelers would give the Patriots a fit. Maybe next year, Mike.
Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin laughed off a question after Sunday’s loss about whether his players under- estimated Jacksonville. But really, the last laugh is on Tomlin, who proclaimed during a November interview with his former boss, Tony Dungy, that there would be two games vs. the Patriots.
At least Steelers all-pro guard David DeCastro acknowledged the silliness.
“It’s embarrassing,” DeCastro said, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It really is. It just blows my mind. They beat us 30-9 (in Week 5). We played like crap, and we want to talk about New England.
“I don’t know what to say about that. It’s just stupid. It’s just not what you do. You don’t need to give a team like that any more bulletin board material.”
Reports out of Jacksonville on Monday had Ramsey’s teammates and coach Doug Marrone defending his spontaneous exuberance and authenticity. Trash talk is part of his game. Ask A.J. Green, the standout Cincinnati receiver, who was ejected (with Ramsey) after the corner got under his skin so much this season that he started throwing punches.
If the Jaguars win their next two, Ramsey will forever have a spot next to Joe Namath. If not, well, talk is cheap. And for some, it indeed has its limits.
Yannick Ngakoue, Jacksonville’s pass rusher, took another tack when asked about Brady on Monday.
“I’m not going to be stupid and say I’m going to make him look like another quarterback,” Ngakoue said, via The Florida Times-Union. “I have enough respect for him. Write that down.”
Does any of this make a difference anyway? With a Super Bowl berth in play, it’s hard to believe any player would draw much motivation from bulletin board material. Then again, some people always search for that something extra. That’s why Lane Johnson, Philadelphia’s all-pro tackle, was at his locker after beating the Falcons on Saturday wearing a German shepherd mask. It was his “underdog mask,” Johnson explained and quite the dig at oddsmakers who made the Eagles the first No. 1 seed to open the postseason as a home underdog.
“The underdog thing, all it does is create energy,” Johnson said. “That’s what football is all about.”
Motivational ploys. Trash talking. Bulletin board material. Optics. Whatever.
Somehow, these games will still come down to executing the X’s and O’s, not words.