Jalen Ramsey: The writing was on the Duval walls in Jacksonville

Jalen Ramsey has requested a trade from the Jacksonville Jaguars and fans shouldn’t be surprised. What lead to this and what should the Jaguars do?

On Monday, it was reported that Jalen Ramsey had requested a trade from the Jacksonville Jaguars. This news comes just a day after a sideline altercation with his head coach, Doug Marrone, in what could go down as the final straw for Ramsey’s tenure with the team.

While it was a shock to see initially, if you’ve followed his career in Duval you know that the writing was always on the walls for this to happen all along. Ramsey has never really taken to Jacksonville, as he obviously has a big market personality, and has not been shy in expressing interest in other teams in the past.

Back in April, DeAndre Hopkins welcomed Russell Westbrook to Houston via an Instagram post and Ramsey responded with “Soo superstars linkin up in Houston now a days”, essentially teasing the idea of playing in Houston with Hopkins.

Ramsey also appeared on Taylor Lawan’s Bussin’ With The Boys podcast in early August and was asked where his ideal free-agent destination would be and he replied, “It would probably either be here or Vegas.” Nashville being the “here” Jalen refers too, as it is where the podcast is recorded and just so happens to be the young corner’s hometown.

https://twitter.com/TaylorLewan77/status/1173764018558898176

Ramsey being so nonchalant about joining other teams is not a normal thing, as most players of his caliber would probably say they hope to stay with the same team for their whole career, even if that isn’t true.

He’s seemingly been laying the groundwork for this potential trade for months and this past Sunday’s loss to the Texans must have been the tipping point.

While it’s easy to say that the Jaguars shouldn’t trade a generational talent like Ramsey and need to do their best to salvage the relationship, it might be too late.

The team should have cleaned house after their embarrassing 2018 season and now it’s come back to bite them.

Dave Caldwell, Jacksonville’s GM, has been as inconsistent as they get, Doug Marrone has totally lost control of his team at this point and Executive VP of football operations, Tom Coughlin, deserves the most blame of them all.

Coughlin has made a litany of mistakes over the last year or so, including criticizing Ramsey for not attending voluntary workouts back in April, which Ramsey also skipped the year before because he prefers to work out at home back in Tennessee. Not to mention this was his first offseason with a child to help care for.

Ramsey responded to Coughlin’s criticism on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/jalenramsey/status/1119315496002883586

The Jaguars relationship with their best player now seems unsalvageable at this point and their only course of action may be to give in to his trade request.

He would certainly fetch a lofty return, especially after Minkah Fitzpatrick was traded to the Steelers for a first-round pick, essentially setting the price for a player much more proven than Fitzpatrick.

Either way, the Jacksonville Jaguars have totally botched what was once a promising future and could be on their way to a full-on rebuild come 2020 if they do decide to move Jalen Ramsey. All of this could have been avoided but you know what they say #BecauseJaguars.