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Teams Jacksonville Jaguars - Touchdown Town
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Gabbert was playing scared in that.
A11dAtP0w3R
Dumpster Fire Diver
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He always played scared. No QB would bail the pocket quicker. Blaine used to go to brown town on a weekly basis.
- Sep 6, 2005
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Jaguars expected to become the 18th richest team by 2025
Tyler Nettuno
June 28, 2021 1:52 pm ET
Since the Jacksonville Jaguars were announced as an expansion franchise in 1993, the organization and city have faced an uphill battle as one of the smallest markets in the league. Early success helped mitigate this, but by the mid-2000s, the play on the field had deteriorated, and blackout games were a regular occurrence at then-Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
However, the last decade has been a sign that things are improving. Owner Shad Khan bought the team in 2012 from the original owners, the Weaver Family, and though the success on the field has been limited (the Jags have only made one playoff appearance since then), from a business perspective, Jacksonville is a rising franchise.
The team made $238 million in revenue in Khan’s first season at the helm in 2012. Last year, the team made $443 million. According to Bookies.com, that trend is expected to continue over the next five years, with the team projected to hit $585.8 million in revenue by 2025.
That figure would rank 18th in the league, which wouldn’t be a major rise (the team ranked 20th in revenue last year), but it is impressive when considering some of the larger cities that rank below it, such as Los Angeles (both teams), Phoenix and Las Vegas.
With the investment in both the stadium and the area around it since Khan took over, it’s clear that the team is invested in Jacksonville for the long haul despite constant, baseless relocation rumors. If bringing in Urban Meyer and Trevor Lawrence improves the success on the field, this projection will only grow in the coming years.
Tyler Nettuno
June 28, 2021 1:52 pm ET
Since the Jacksonville Jaguars were announced as an expansion franchise in 1993, the organization and city have faced an uphill battle as one of the smallest markets in the league. Early success helped mitigate this, but by the mid-2000s, the play on the field had deteriorated, and blackout games were a regular occurrence at then-Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.
However, the last decade has been a sign that things are improving. Owner Shad Khan bought the team in 2012 from the original owners, the Weaver Family, and though the success on the field has been limited (the Jags have only made one playoff appearance since then), from a business perspective, Jacksonville is a rising franchise.
The team made $238 million in revenue in Khan’s first season at the helm in 2012. Last year, the team made $443 million. According to Bookies.com, that trend is expected to continue over the next five years, with the team projected to hit $585.8 million in revenue by 2025.
That figure would rank 18th in the league, which wouldn’t be a major rise (the team ranked 20th in revenue last year), but it is impressive when considering some of the larger cities that rank below it, such as Los Angeles (both teams), Phoenix and Las Vegas.
With the investment in both the stadium and the area around it since Khan took over, it’s clear that the team is invested in Jacksonville for the long haul despite constant, baseless relocation rumors. If bringing in Urban Meyer and Trevor Lawrence improves the success on the field, this projection will only grow in the coming years.
- Sep 6, 2005
- 145,203
- 95,041
- AFL Club
- Fremantle
Outrunning the Past: A Conversation With Former Jaguars Receiver R. Jay Soward
R. Jay Soward was projected to be a star for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Instead, he played only 13 games and became an example of what not to do. For the first time in 20 years, he sits down to tell the story of what went wrong.
BY KASSIDY HILL , JUN 29, 2021
R. Jay Soward fumed on the sidelines. He was angry, he was hurt and he was drunk.
Or to put more aptly, as he recalls it, he “was a belligerent drunk.”
Soward had always been one of the best athletes on the field, so much so, the Jacksonville Jaguars had taken him No. 29 overall in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft. Just a little over a year and a half later, he slumped on the sideline, forced to watch but not play as his team took on Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers on "Monday Night Football."
With just under two minutes to play, the teams were tied at 21. After Favre ran in a touchdown to go up 28-21 and with less than a minute to go, the Jaguars were driving to tie or possibly take the lead.
Soward thought he’d be playing in the primetime clash. Instead he stood stoic on the sideline next to actor Samuel L. Jackson—on the field as a fan—as Jackson lectured him.
“You need to concentrate on football now," the actor told Soward. "Whatever you want to do with extracurricular activities, or smoke or whatever you want to do, do it after football.”
It was advice Soward had ignored thus far. He’d just spent 10 weeks at a NFL rehab center and returned to Jacksonville in time to practice for the big night.
“I come back, [former head coach] Coach [Tom] Coughlin says, ‘We're going to see how you practice, and see if you practice well, we'll let you play Monday night.’ Because it’s against Brett Favre. So of course, first day of practice, I caught one ball, he said, ‘You're playing.’”
Then on Monday night, as Soward was prepping for his triumphant return, receivers coach John McNulty approached him. Soward wasn’t going to be facing the Packers that night. The reasoning was the need for an extra defensive player on the active roster.
“I was crushed. I did everything [those] guys asked me to do. I didn't do it all the way and maybe that's why it didn't turn out the way it did because I cut corners. And if you don't do things right, you're not going to get the right results,” Soward tells Jaguar Report, 20 years of reflection helping him to understand but doing little to ease the pain of the memory.
The Packers game was supposed to be a fresh start for the embattled receiver. He had pinned all of his future hopes on getting back on the field that Monday night. Instead, he watched as a dropped pass on third-and-long pushed the Jags against a long fourth-down try.
“I remember like it was yesterday," Soward says. "I was supposed to be in there and Alvis Whitted dropped the ball.”
Quarterback Mark Brunell was sacked. Jacksonville turned the ball over on downs, effectively losing the game.
Angry, hurt and drunk, Soward stumbled out of the stadium.
It was the last time he would ever step foot on an NFL football field.
This isn’t a redemption story.
This isn’t a comeback, a revival or an inspiring tale of vindication and absolution.
If anything, this is a cautionary tale. A desperate plea from one man to learn from his mistakes.
Soward is a California native and current resident. It’s where he went to school, a receiver with the local USC Trojans, and quickly made a name for himself with a four-touchdown game as a freshman versus rival UCLA.
The Jaguars drafted him 29th overall—the highest they’d ever drafted a receiver at the time—and signed him to a five-year contract worth $5.5 million. He was supposed to be a star; a dynamic receiver with God-given talent that could become a go-to guy for Brunell. The playmaker to help Coughlin’s team return to the AFC Championship for the third time … and maybe win it that time.
“Tom Coughlin was so determined to prove that this is the guy that's gonna help get us over the hump and get us there. I don't think he anticipated R. Jay having to struggle, living on his own in a city where he knows nobody, as a West Coast guy,” recalls Jaguars receiver Jimmy Smith.
There are no pictures in this story; even fewer highlights and tangible proof of Soward’s time with the Jaguars. He threw it all away. All of his NFL memorabilia, the championship wares from when he won a trophy in the Canadian League years later. All gone. Some are possibly in a closet at his mother's house, he says. But he’s not sure and he doesn’t want to see it. It’s not because he doesn’t care; more like he cares too much.
There’s a visceral reaction in Soward whenever confronted with items from his past. There’s an even stronger one when he tries to watch a game. He doesn’t acknowledge the NFL during the regular season. He’ll watch the Jaguars if they’re in the playoffs, and he’ll allow the Super Bowl to stay on the TV for the entire 60-minute clock. But he’s in and out of the room the whole time. He hasn’t watched a full game in 20 years.
“It just makes me sick, because I love it so much and I took it away from myself," Soward said. "So it's like—whenever I watch it, I just, I feel like I'm gonna vomit, so I can’t.”
To better understand what happens next requires hindsight Soward didn’t have 21 years ago. Asked the biggest lesson he learned through his two tumultuous years in the NFL, Soward answers without hesitation.
“That I can’t drink alcohol.”
Addiction can cause a person to live outside themselves. It encourages acts and flashes of a personality that aren’t indicative of the vessel but rather the substance that has taken over. Everything that follows below is a result of the disease working in Soward. He wants to make it clear they were still choices he made; metaphorical knife wounds he self-inflicted. But these decisions were not necessarily those of Soward, but more so Soward under the influence.
When Soward first arrived at Jaguars camp during that 2000 NFL offseason, he was carrying a weighty bitterness.
“I really wanted to go to New Orleans," he said. "It's just I felt I fit in better there.”
Soward was worried he wouldn’t get along with Coughlin, someone he calls an excellent on-field coach, but not necessarily the hands-on player's coach he wanted. Instead he’d been praying for a skipper like John Robinson, who’d been his coach at USC as a freshman and sophomore, or James Haslett, who was the head of the New Orleans Saints at the time. Still, it was Jacksonville who nabbed the young receiver, so he made the cross-country trip.
Once in Jacksonville, Soward looked around at his peers and knew without a doubt, he had the talent to succeed. His mistake was thinking that’s all he’d need. His father though was rightly concerned it wouldn’t be enough.
After Soward arrived in Jacksonville, his father in tow, the elder Soward pulled aside receivers Keenan McCardell and Jimmy Smith.
“His father was the happiest man I’d seen in a long time,” Smith says through a sad smile. “He came up to me and Keenan just like, ‘Man I’m so glad my son got drafted to the Jaguars. That [you and Keenan] can mentor him and help him throughout his career.”
But all of Smith’s and McCarrdell’s efforts were in vain.
Rumors have floated for years, unbounded and fueled by speculation, about all the Jaguars had to do to keep Soward in line during that first camp. For Soward, that time all boils down to something Coughlin told him one day.
“He said, ‘You're my best player on the field but I'm so afraid when you go home.' I didn't understand what he meant at the time. But now I do.”
When Soward would go home, there was no supervision, no accountability, no voice other than his own, and it was telling him to grab a beer. Then another. Then another.
“Whenever I had like a taste of beer, then it would just [be] beer from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m.,” Soward recalls, voice shaking with the shame the memory drudges.
Soward played in 13 games his rookie season, starting two. He was a backup to Pro Bowler’s Smith and McCardell. He caught 14 passes for 154 yards and one touchdown. The one touchdown is his favorite memory in his, albeit short, NFL career.
“My only touchdown [was] when I beat Deion Sanders on that deep post,” he chuckles. “I only scored one touchdown in the league and it was against Deion, it was against the best corner ever to play the game so that, that says a lot to me.
“It was backside post. [Offensive coordinator Bobby] Petrino was so worried … I remember [quarterback] Mark [Brunell] said, ‘I’m coming to you’ so I was like, alright and I seen Deion out there, I said ‘alright, I gotta run as fast as possible.’”
It was the second time that day Soward beat Sanders on the post route, a feat so rare, the Jaguars 2001 media guide mentions both plays, despite the first one being a drop. Even Sanders was impressed.
“After the game Deion came and said, he said, ‘Hey boy, you made me look like a rookie out there,’ and he gave me a hug and I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Sanders.’ That was like the highlight moment, to beat Deion Sanders for a touchdown—and like I beat him bad too.”
The cackle as Soward describes his shining moment fades as he remembers what happened next.
“I always get so sentimental every time I talk about this situation, because like it brings up so many different emotions. Good ones, bad ones. Like I remember Fred Taylor, like all my friends, [corner] Fernando [Bryant], going up against, Aaron [Beasley] every day like, man," Soward says. "So, I’m just—it’s just hard. But I like the opportunity because I need to say it because it helps me every day.”
So, he begins to “say it,” telling a story that few knew about at the time and none have heard since.
Before the 2001 season, the former first-round pick was fighting to be third on the depth chart and an adult on his own. It didn’t go well. He was sent to an NFL rehab center in Miami for 10 weeks, banished for the first three quarters of the Jaguars' 2001 season. Nothing good ever happens in Miami.
“It was a halfway house in Miami; I'm like, why are you guys sending me to Miami…it's like going to Vegas.
“That was the first time I ever took ecstasy, in an NFL rehab center,” Soward reveals, taking a long pause as he stares off, almost shocked at the words himself.
"I've never told nobody about that.”
He didn’t train the entire time he was in South Florida, knowing he’d physically be able to return to the game with ease. It was the mental part that was holding him back. The ecstasy and addiction didn’t help.
When he returned from the 10 weeks in Miami—which did more harm than good—and was benched for the Packers game, Soward began to spiral. He cursed out his parents after the Green Bay loss, put them on a plane back to California, and splinted a fracture in the relationship that is only just recently healing.
“Me and my dad are in a better place today but it really caused a lot of strain on everything, all the relationships and all the people I loved.”
He went to Canada and won a Grey Cup Championship. He applied to be allowed back in the NFL and was told by the league he needed to finish six more months of drug testing. During that time, he heard another former NFL player—one who’d been kicked out for drugs as well and was applying to be reinstated after playing in Canada—admit in a radio interview that he’d continued to do marijuana while in Canada.
In the most recent (2020) agreed-upon standards and protocol between the NFL and NFL Players Association for players found to be using recreational drugs and/or abusing alcohol, reinstatement criteria is set forth as such:
“After the completion of the one-year banishment period, the Commissioner, in his sole discretion, will determine if and when the Player will be allowed to return to the NFL. A Player’s failure to adhere to his Treatment Plan during his banishment will be a significant consideration in the Commissioner’s decision. A Player seeking reinstatement also must meet certain clinical requirements as determined by the Medical Director and other requirements as set forth [in an appendix.]”
Soward finished his six months of testing, returning a clean bill. He was denied reinstatement. The player he’d heard on the radio was granted permission to return.
“I knew at that point that it was done for me.”
Soward is very careful to hold no one but himself responsible. It’s hard to stay bitter at the league for Soward because, “I did so much that they didn't trust me. I didn't give them any reason to trust me. I’m not gonna blame anyone in this interview for anything that happened to me because it was all self-induced.”
That admission unloads a burden off Soward but also takes a weight off others that have been carrying around misguided guilt.
Smith asks with skepticism, “[R. Jay] didn’t say it was me and Keenan’s fault? Because we feel like we let him down … I felt obligated after we met his father. At the end of the day when things didn't work out, I felt like I let his father down. I'm sure Keenan felt the same way.”
Soward’s decision to open and eventually heal this wound is repairing decades of pain for himself and also his teammates. Smith recalls Coughlin’s willingness to give Soward chances—so far as to send a car to pick him up for practice—rubbed the locker room the wrong way. Still, one can’t help but wonder; what would life have looked like not only for a young Soward, but for other young stars as well, if the league provided supportive accountability as opposed to outright punishment?
Based on the same aforementioned NFL and NFLPA agreement, players found to be using recreational drugs and/or abusing alcohol are punished in three stages. The first instance requires a fine, typically a small percentage of their paycheck. The second requires a fine (of a greater percentage) and possible suspension. The third offense levies a one-year suspension.
Over the years, the league has added treatment and counseling to its protocols. But Soward—for so many years, the poster boy for what not to do—wants to see more interaction with the teams as opposed to headquarters. The NFL and NFLPA agreement states, “the Treating Clinician (or Treatment Facility) shall be solely responsible for the care of the Player.”
That can mean 10 weeks in a treatment center in Miami.
“For whatever reason, a lot of us NFL players struggle with depression or anxiety,” admits Smith. “It seems like it's come around now and the NFL is getting more educated about what the players need, in order to go out performing football, and that includes the mental stability of a player.”
That wasn’t always the case 20 years ago.
It’s important to point out this is not an indictment on the treatment centers and practices. They can be incredibly helpful and should be utilized by anyone suffering from addiction. This is also not to state football players should receive special treatment. Football, for many, is a privilege, a reward, so logically it makes sense to remove the thing a person loves in order to get their attention. And Soward acknowledges if he’d stayed in the millionaire lifestyle that accompanies the sport, it would have been detrimental.
“I think if I had gotten a second contract, I would be dead right now, because I was just, I was too arrogant.”
But what if there was another way? For fans, football encompasses the game, the pageantry, the fame; but for athletes, at the end of the day, football boils down to the field, the locker room, the grind amongst strangers that become brothers. So there is something to be said for removing the only stability and certainty a person has ever known during the most uncertain time of their life.
“Don't take practice away from the kid,” Soward offers.
“Even if he has a substance abuse problem, let him continue to play football because that's what he's there to do. And you take football away from a kid and you try to put him in AA or a rehab center, it’s going to be difficult for him because all he knows is football; he’s been playing football forever. And you take it away from him and then he's sitting at home, what do you think he's doing?”
Adds Smith of his life away from the game, “I got arrested. Because I didn't have that same support system that I had when I was playing. So I was really a loose cannon. So I understand, because I've been on that side. And fortunately, I've made it through.”
“That's why you see so many repeat offenders,” continues Soward (and a statement with which Smith adamantly agrees). “I just think that the league should maybe, you know, let the guys practice, but they have to follow really, really, really strict guidelines in order to keep practicing. I think that's what hurt me the most is that I couldn't practice and I couldn't play.
“I got football taken away from me so now I'm drinking more because I have more time on my hands, and then I started doing drugs and then, you know, then it's a snowball effect and then it's really hard to get yourself out of it. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.”
Soward did eventually get himself out though. It’s why he’s ready to finally talk about that time in Jacksonville and all that happened as a result. And when you ask Soward what finally got his attention, he’ll tell you; it wasn’t football.
Losing his passion sent Soward farther down a dark spiral. Losing his family forced him to find a way out. That was when Soward finally hit the bottom of the pit. The crash landing caused his eyes to fly open and see every choice he’d made to arrive there in that spot.
Here, Soward begins to tell a story that requires a nuance that can’t properly be conveyed in this forum. When someone opens a wound, the pain release can become almost euphoric. What had been held in for so long, choking them, is finally allowed a respite. It creates a rush to just start opening every old wound, hoping and praying for relief. Which is why Soward began to pour out a tale he wouldn’t normally share. But it is a story between the Soward family and as such we will leave it only to be told by them.
Suffice to say, there was an altercation. It led to his wife and kids moving several states away.
Head down in shame, Soward quiveringly admits what others have been waiting years for him to realize.
“I had to keep going, falling on my face, falling on my face, falling on my face until I just finally said, 'You know what, I don't want to drink anymore,'" Soward said. "And I stopped drinking and once I stopped drinking, I see how my life changed.”
If one wanted to call this a redemption story, this would be where the character arc began to turn.
He started by forgiving his father, who had acted as his financial advisor when Soward was playing football.
“I just had to be honest with him and tell him that it wasn't his fault. It was mine. You know, I blamed him for years.”
Instead, he recognized what was really a simple truth. The money ran out because the money stopped coming in.
“When you're inebriated and you're not in your right mind, then, you know, you're going to blame everybody else until you're in that right state again and then you’ll say, 'You know what I was effed up for that. I was rude for saying that to my dad. I was rude for treating my friends like this or treating my kids mother like this or you know just all the ignorant, ignorant stuff I did that was just selfish.”
He found a new passion, producing music, one he hopes his four sons follow, even if they’re all currently in love with football. He started to accept his own responsibility in his shortcomings and forgave himself for letting it get that far. He shot a documentary in 2020 with Director Michael Wright, called “American Fumble: The R. Jay Soward Story” that examines his rise and fall.
And he let go of football.
“I had to learn how to love something else. I had to learn how to love me first. So, now that I love me, I'm like football wasn’t all that. I used to always think that I was a football player first, and then a person second, because that's why people loved me because I played football, and they praised me and I'm like, ‘Why do you want somebody to praise you, like dude you're just a regular person like everybody else.'
“I'm not as arrogant as I used to be. I don't walk around—like I used to walk around Jacksonville and say, ‘Don't touch me I'm a million-dollar man.' And that's so disgusting for me to do that because I'm just R. Jay.”
Soward still coaches some high school football, unable to completely remove that part of his life since it would akin to cutting out his own heart. But there’s also some ulterior motive; he wants others to see all he did wrong and beg them to learn from his mistakes. If there are any current NFL players reading, he wants to pass the same lesson along to them.
“I wasn't the best businessman, you know, and so that's the part of it, that the young guys don't really get, that it's a business...I would say first and foremost to Trevor Lawrence [and others drafted], embrace the moment. And once you embrace that moment, then it's all business. You know, don’t, don't try to figure the game out. Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and understand what a professional is.
“I think [former Jaguars receiver] Keenan McCardell told me one day—and really the light bulb went off when he told me one day at practice—he said a professional is someone who knows what to do in every situation of the game, and he doesn't panic, and he's able to do it in a cool, calm, collected way. So, if I had to say anything I would say, treat one of your veterans like a sponsor, and find the niche that works for you in the NFL so you'd have a prosperous career.”
Soward reentering the conversation around his reputation and legacy also brings peace to others who have wondered for 20 years whatever happened to their teammate.
“It was tough for us to be around him and get him in a place to where we could mentor him, right, because he just kept running away,” ponders Smith. “So it's good to hear that you're doing this interview with R. Jay because I've always been worried about whether he was homeless or whatever the case is. Good that he's taken ownership.”
Soward has stored up two decades worth of anger, pain, regret and healing. He’s made peace with the role he played in his life, and although he can’t bring himself to watch the NFL, much less the Jacksonville Jaguars, for long, the bitterness is gone, replaced by an understanding.
The road ahead is still treacherous, but he’s no longer tripping over himself to trod it; but there is one more roadblock to remove.
As the interview winds down, Soward is asked, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to add?'
He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. This is the question he’s been waiting on, not just for the past 20 minutes in an interview; but the past 20 years in exile.
“One thing I will do, I do want to apologize to the City of Jacksonville, because, as a first-round draft pick, I should have held myself to a higher standard. And I didn't represent the city right, and you guys picked me. I didn't pick you guys, and I let you guys down. And I apologize for that, Jacksonville.”
R. Jay Soward was projected to be a star for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Instead, he played only 13 games and became an example of what not to do. For the first time in 20 years, he sits down to tell the story of what went wrong.
BY KASSIDY HILL , JUN 29, 2021
R. Jay Soward fumed on the sidelines. He was angry, he was hurt and he was drunk.
Or to put more aptly, as he recalls it, he “was a belligerent drunk.”
Soward had always been one of the best athletes on the field, so much so, the Jacksonville Jaguars had taken him No. 29 overall in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft. Just a little over a year and a half later, he slumped on the sideline, forced to watch but not play as his team took on Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers on "Monday Night Football."
With just under two minutes to play, the teams were tied at 21. After Favre ran in a touchdown to go up 28-21 and with less than a minute to go, the Jaguars were driving to tie or possibly take the lead.
Soward thought he’d be playing in the primetime clash. Instead he stood stoic on the sideline next to actor Samuel L. Jackson—on the field as a fan—as Jackson lectured him.
“You need to concentrate on football now," the actor told Soward. "Whatever you want to do with extracurricular activities, or smoke or whatever you want to do, do it after football.”
It was advice Soward had ignored thus far. He’d just spent 10 weeks at a NFL rehab center and returned to Jacksonville in time to practice for the big night.
“I come back, [former head coach] Coach [Tom] Coughlin says, ‘We're going to see how you practice, and see if you practice well, we'll let you play Monday night.’ Because it’s against Brett Favre. So of course, first day of practice, I caught one ball, he said, ‘You're playing.’”
Then on Monday night, as Soward was prepping for his triumphant return, receivers coach John McNulty approached him. Soward wasn’t going to be facing the Packers that night. The reasoning was the need for an extra defensive player on the active roster.
“I was crushed. I did everything [those] guys asked me to do. I didn't do it all the way and maybe that's why it didn't turn out the way it did because I cut corners. And if you don't do things right, you're not going to get the right results,” Soward tells Jaguar Report, 20 years of reflection helping him to understand but doing little to ease the pain of the memory.
The Packers game was supposed to be a fresh start for the embattled receiver. He had pinned all of his future hopes on getting back on the field that Monday night. Instead, he watched as a dropped pass on third-and-long pushed the Jags against a long fourth-down try.
“I remember like it was yesterday," Soward says. "I was supposed to be in there and Alvis Whitted dropped the ball.”
Quarterback Mark Brunell was sacked. Jacksonville turned the ball over on downs, effectively losing the game.
Angry, hurt and drunk, Soward stumbled out of the stadium.
It was the last time he would ever step foot on an NFL football field.
This isn’t a redemption story.
This isn’t a comeback, a revival or an inspiring tale of vindication and absolution.
If anything, this is a cautionary tale. A desperate plea from one man to learn from his mistakes.
Soward is a California native and current resident. It’s where he went to school, a receiver with the local USC Trojans, and quickly made a name for himself with a four-touchdown game as a freshman versus rival UCLA.
The Jaguars drafted him 29th overall—the highest they’d ever drafted a receiver at the time—and signed him to a five-year contract worth $5.5 million. He was supposed to be a star; a dynamic receiver with God-given talent that could become a go-to guy for Brunell. The playmaker to help Coughlin’s team return to the AFC Championship for the third time … and maybe win it that time.
“Tom Coughlin was so determined to prove that this is the guy that's gonna help get us over the hump and get us there. I don't think he anticipated R. Jay having to struggle, living on his own in a city where he knows nobody, as a West Coast guy,” recalls Jaguars receiver Jimmy Smith.
There are no pictures in this story; even fewer highlights and tangible proof of Soward’s time with the Jaguars. He threw it all away. All of his NFL memorabilia, the championship wares from when he won a trophy in the Canadian League years later. All gone. Some are possibly in a closet at his mother's house, he says. But he’s not sure and he doesn’t want to see it. It’s not because he doesn’t care; more like he cares too much.
There’s a visceral reaction in Soward whenever confronted with items from his past. There’s an even stronger one when he tries to watch a game. He doesn’t acknowledge the NFL during the regular season. He’ll watch the Jaguars if they’re in the playoffs, and he’ll allow the Super Bowl to stay on the TV for the entire 60-minute clock. But he’s in and out of the room the whole time. He hasn’t watched a full game in 20 years.
“It just makes me sick, because I love it so much and I took it away from myself," Soward said. "So it's like—whenever I watch it, I just, I feel like I'm gonna vomit, so I can’t.”
To better understand what happens next requires hindsight Soward didn’t have 21 years ago. Asked the biggest lesson he learned through his two tumultuous years in the NFL, Soward answers without hesitation.
“That I can’t drink alcohol.”
Addiction can cause a person to live outside themselves. It encourages acts and flashes of a personality that aren’t indicative of the vessel but rather the substance that has taken over. Everything that follows below is a result of the disease working in Soward. He wants to make it clear they were still choices he made; metaphorical knife wounds he self-inflicted. But these decisions were not necessarily those of Soward, but more so Soward under the influence.
When Soward first arrived at Jaguars camp during that 2000 NFL offseason, he was carrying a weighty bitterness.
“I really wanted to go to New Orleans," he said. "It's just I felt I fit in better there.”
Soward was worried he wouldn’t get along with Coughlin, someone he calls an excellent on-field coach, but not necessarily the hands-on player's coach he wanted. Instead he’d been praying for a skipper like John Robinson, who’d been his coach at USC as a freshman and sophomore, or James Haslett, who was the head of the New Orleans Saints at the time. Still, it was Jacksonville who nabbed the young receiver, so he made the cross-country trip.
Once in Jacksonville, Soward looked around at his peers and knew without a doubt, he had the talent to succeed. His mistake was thinking that’s all he’d need. His father though was rightly concerned it wouldn’t be enough.
After Soward arrived in Jacksonville, his father in tow, the elder Soward pulled aside receivers Keenan McCardell and Jimmy Smith.
“His father was the happiest man I’d seen in a long time,” Smith says through a sad smile. “He came up to me and Keenan just like, ‘Man I’m so glad my son got drafted to the Jaguars. That [you and Keenan] can mentor him and help him throughout his career.”
But all of Smith’s and McCarrdell’s efforts were in vain.
Rumors have floated for years, unbounded and fueled by speculation, about all the Jaguars had to do to keep Soward in line during that first camp. For Soward, that time all boils down to something Coughlin told him one day.
“He said, ‘You're my best player on the field but I'm so afraid when you go home.' I didn't understand what he meant at the time. But now I do.”
When Soward would go home, there was no supervision, no accountability, no voice other than his own, and it was telling him to grab a beer. Then another. Then another.
“Whenever I had like a taste of beer, then it would just [be] beer from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m.,” Soward recalls, voice shaking with the shame the memory drudges.
Soward played in 13 games his rookie season, starting two. He was a backup to Pro Bowler’s Smith and McCardell. He caught 14 passes for 154 yards and one touchdown. The one touchdown is his favorite memory in his, albeit short, NFL career.
“My only touchdown [was] when I beat Deion Sanders on that deep post,” he chuckles. “I only scored one touchdown in the league and it was against Deion, it was against the best corner ever to play the game so that, that says a lot to me.
“It was backside post. [Offensive coordinator Bobby] Petrino was so worried … I remember [quarterback] Mark [Brunell] said, ‘I’m coming to you’ so I was like, alright and I seen Deion out there, I said ‘alright, I gotta run as fast as possible.’”
It was the second time that day Soward beat Sanders on the post route, a feat so rare, the Jaguars 2001 media guide mentions both plays, despite the first one being a drop. Even Sanders was impressed.
“After the game Deion came and said, he said, ‘Hey boy, you made me look like a rookie out there,’ and he gave me a hug and I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Sanders.’ That was like the highlight moment, to beat Deion Sanders for a touchdown—and like I beat him bad too.”
The cackle as Soward describes his shining moment fades as he remembers what happened next.
“I always get so sentimental every time I talk about this situation, because like it brings up so many different emotions. Good ones, bad ones. Like I remember Fred Taylor, like all my friends, [corner] Fernando [Bryant], going up against, Aaron [Beasley] every day like, man," Soward says. "So, I’m just—it’s just hard. But I like the opportunity because I need to say it because it helps me every day.”
So, he begins to “say it,” telling a story that few knew about at the time and none have heard since.
Before the 2001 season, the former first-round pick was fighting to be third on the depth chart and an adult on his own. It didn’t go well. He was sent to an NFL rehab center in Miami for 10 weeks, banished for the first three quarters of the Jaguars' 2001 season. Nothing good ever happens in Miami.
“It was a halfway house in Miami; I'm like, why are you guys sending me to Miami…it's like going to Vegas.
“That was the first time I ever took ecstasy, in an NFL rehab center,” Soward reveals, taking a long pause as he stares off, almost shocked at the words himself.
"I've never told nobody about that.”
He didn’t train the entire time he was in South Florida, knowing he’d physically be able to return to the game with ease. It was the mental part that was holding him back. The ecstasy and addiction didn’t help.
When he returned from the 10 weeks in Miami—which did more harm than good—and was benched for the Packers game, Soward began to spiral. He cursed out his parents after the Green Bay loss, put them on a plane back to California, and splinted a fracture in the relationship that is only just recently healing.
“Me and my dad are in a better place today but it really caused a lot of strain on everything, all the relationships and all the people I loved.”
He went to Canada and won a Grey Cup Championship. He applied to be allowed back in the NFL and was told by the league he needed to finish six more months of drug testing. During that time, he heard another former NFL player—one who’d been kicked out for drugs as well and was applying to be reinstated after playing in Canada—admit in a radio interview that he’d continued to do marijuana while in Canada.
In the most recent (2020) agreed-upon standards and protocol between the NFL and NFL Players Association for players found to be using recreational drugs and/or abusing alcohol, reinstatement criteria is set forth as such:
“After the completion of the one-year banishment period, the Commissioner, in his sole discretion, will determine if and when the Player will be allowed to return to the NFL. A Player’s failure to adhere to his Treatment Plan during his banishment will be a significant consideration in the Commissioner’s decision. A Player seeking reinstatement also must meet certain clinical requirements as determined by the Medical Director and other requirements as set forth [in an appendix.]”
Soward finished his six months of testing, returning a clean bill. He was denied reinstatement. The player he’d heard on the radio was granted permission to return.
“I knew at that point that it was done for me.”
Soward is very careful to hold no one but himself responsible. It’s hard to stay bitter at the league for Soward because, “I did so much that they didn't trust me. I didn't give them any reason to trust me. I’m not gonna blame anyone in this interview for anything that happened to me because it was all self-induced.”
That admission unloads a burden off Soward but also takes a weight off others that have been carrying around misguided guilt.
Smith asks with skepticism, “[R. Jay] didn’t say it was me and Keenan’s fault? Because we feel like we let him down … I felt obligated after we met his father. At the end of the day when things didn't work out, I felt like I let his father down. I'm sure Keenan felt the same way.”
Soward’s decision to open and eventually heal this wound is repairing decades of pain for himself and also his teammates. Smith recalls Coughlin’s willingness to give Soward chances—so far as to send a car to pick him up for practice—rubbed the locker room the wrong way. Still, one can’t help but wonder; what would life have looked like not only for a young Soward, but for other young stars as well, if the league provided supportive accountability as opposed to outright punishment?
Based on the same aforementioned NFL and NFLPA agreement, players found to be using recreational drugs and/or abusing alcohol are punished in three stages. The first instance requires a fine, typically a small percentage of their paycheck. The second requires a fine (of a greater percentage) and possible suspension. The third offense levies a one-year suspension.
Over the years, the league has added treatment and counseling to its protocols. But Soward—for so many years, the poster boy for what not to do—wants to see more interaction with the teams as opposed to headquarters. The NFL and NFLPA agreement states, “the Treating Clinician (or Treatment Facility) shall be solely responsible for the care of the Player.”
That can mean 10 weeks in a treatment center in Miami.
“For whatever reason, a lot of us NFL players struggle with depression or anxiety,” admits Smith. “It seems like it's come around now and the NFL is getting more educated about what the players need, in order to go out performing football, and that includes the mental stability of a player.”
That wasn’t always the case 20 years ago.
It’s important to point out this is not an indictment on the treatment centers and practices. They can be incredibly helpful and should be utilized by anyone suffering from addiction. This is also not to state football players should receive special treatment. Football, for many, is a privilege, a reward, so logically it makes sense to remove the thing a person loves in order to get their attention. And Soward acknowledges if he’d stayed in the millionaire lifestyle that accompanies the sport, it would have been detrimental.
“I think if I had gotten a second contract, I would be dead right now, because I was just, I was too arrogant.”
But what if there was another way? For fans, football encompasses the game, the pageantry, the fame; but for athletes, at the end of the day, football boils down to the field, the locker room, the grind amongst strangers that become brothers. So there is something to be said for removing the only stability and certainty a person has ever known during the most uncertain time of their life.
“Don't take practice away from the kid,” Soward offers.
“Even if he has a substance abuse problem, let him continue to play football because that's what he's there to do. And you take football away from a kid and you try to put him in AA or a rehab center, it’s going to be difficult for him because all he knows is football; he’s been playing football forever. And you take it away from him and then he's sitting at home, what do you think he's doing?”
Adds Smith of his life away from the game, “I got arrested. Because I didn't have that same support system that I had when I was playing. So I was really a loose cannon. So I understand, because I've been on that side. And fortunately, I've made it through.”
“That's why you see so many repeat offenders,” continues Soward (and a statement with which Smith adamantly agrees). “I just think that the league should maybe, you know, let the guys practice, but they have to follow really, really, really strict guidelines in order to keep practicing. I think that's what hurt me the most is that I couldn't practice and I couldn't play.
“I got football taken away from me so now I'm drinking more because I have more time on my hands, and then I started doing drugs and then, you know, then it's a snowball effect and then it's really hard to get yourself out of it. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.”
Soward did eventually get himself out though. It’s why he’s ready to finally talk about that time in Jacksonville and all that happened as a result. And when you ask Soward what finally got his attention, he’ll tell you; it wasn’t football.
Losing his passion sent Soward farther down a dark spiral. Losing his family forced him to find a way out. That was when Soward finally hit the bottom of the pit. The crash landing caused his eyes to fly open and see every choice he’d made to arrive there in that spot.
Here, Soward begins to tell a story that requires a nuance that can’t properly be conveyed in this forum. When someone opens a wound, the pain release can become almost euphoric. What had been held in for so long, choking them, is finally allowed a respite. It creates a rush to just start opening every old wound, hoping and praying for relief. Which is why Soward began to pour out a tale he wouldn’t normally share. But it is a story between the Soward family and as such we will leave it only to be told by them.
Suffice to say, there was an altercation. It led to his wife and kids moving several states away.
Head down in shame, Soward quiveringly admits what others have been waiting years for him to realize.
“I had to keep going, falling on my face, falling on my face, falling on my face until I just finally said, 'You know what, I don't want to drink anymore,'" Soward said. "And I stopped drinking and once I stopped drinking, I see how my life changed.”
If one wanted to call this a redemption story, this would be where the character arc began to turn.
He started by forgiving his father, who had acted as his financial advisor when Soward was playing football.
“I just had to be honest with him and tell him that it wasn't his fault. It was mine. You know, I blamed him for years.”
Instead, he recognized what was really a simple truth. The money ran out because the money stopped coming in.
“When you're inebriated and you're not in your right mind, then, you know, you're going to blame everybody else until you're in that right state again and then you’ll say, 'You know what I was effed up for that. I was rude for saying that to my dad. I was rude for treating my friends like this or treating my kids mother like this or you know just all the ignorant, ignorant stuff I did that was just selfish.”
He found a new passion, producing music, one he hopes his four sons follow, even if they’re all currently in love with football. He started to accept his own responsibility in his shortcomings and forgave himself for letting it get that far. He shot a documentary in 2020 with Director Michael Wright, called “American Fumble: The R. Jay Soward Story” that examines his rise and fall.
And he let go of football.
“I had to learn how to love something else. I had to learn how to love me first. So, now that I love me, I'm like football wasn’t all that. I used to always think that I was a football player first, and then a person second, because that's why people loved me because I played football, and they praised me and I'm like, ‘Why do you want somebody to praise you, like dude you're just a regular person like everybody else.'
“I'm not as arrogant as I used to be. I don't walk around—like I used to walk around Jacksonville and say, ‘Don't touch me I'm a million-dollar man.' And that's so disgusting for me to do that because I'm just R. Jay.”
Soward still coaches some high school football, unable to completely remove that part of his life since it would akin to cutting out his own heart. But there’s also some ulterior motive; he wants others to see all he did wrong and beg them to learn from his mistakes. If there are any current NFL players reading, he wants to pass the same lesson along to them.
“I wasn't the best businessman, you know, and so that's the part of it, that the young guys don't really get, that it's a business...I would say first and foremost to Trevor Lawrence [and others drafted], embrace the moment. And once you embrace that moment, then it's all business. You know, don’t, don't try to figure the game out. Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and understand what a professional is.
“I think [former Jaguars receiver] Keenan McCardell told me one day—and really the light bulb went off when he told me one day at practice—he said a professional is someone who knows what to do in every situation of the game, and he doesn't panic, and he's able to do it in a cool, calm, collected way. So, if I had to say anything I would say, treat one of your veterans like a sponsor, and find the niche that works for you in the NFL so you'd have a prosperous career.”
Soward reentering the conversation around his reputation and legacy also brings peace to others who have wondered for 20 years whatever happened to their teammate.
“It was tough for us to be around him and get him in a place to where we could mentor him, right, because he just kept running away,” ponders Smith. “So it's good to hear that you're doing this interview with R. Jay because I've always been worried about whether he was homeless or whatever the case is. Good that he's taken ownership.”
Soward has stored up two decades worth of anger, pain, regret and healing. He’s made peace with the role he played in his life, and although he can’t bring himself to watch the NFL, much less the Jacksonville Jaguars, for long, the bitterness is gone, replaced by an understanding.
The road ahead is still treacherous, but he’s no longer tripping over himself to trod it; but there is one more roadblock to remove.
As the interview winds down, Soward is asked, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to add?'
He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. This is the question he’s been waiting on, not just for the past 20 minutes in an interview; but the past 20 years in exile.
“One thing I will do, I do want to apologize to the City of Jacksonville, because, as a first-round draft pick, I should have held myself to a higher standard. And I didn't represent the city right, and you guys picked me. I didn't pick you guys, and I let you guys down. And I apologize for that, Jacksonville.”
- Sep 6, 2005
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One out
In
1 RB Carlos Hyde - Seattle
2 WR Phil Dorsett - Seattle
3 S Rayshawn Jenkins - Los Angeles Chargers
4 S Rudy Ford - Philadelphia
5 PR Jamal Agnew - Detroit
6 DT Roy Robertson-Harris - Chicago
DT Tyson Alualu - Pittsburgh
7 DE Jahid Ward - Baltimore
8 TE Chris Manhertz - Panthers
9 CB Shaquill Griffin - Seattle
10 DT MAlcolm Brown - New Orleans
11 WR Marvin Jones - Detroit
12 WR Jon'vea Johnson - Dallas - Claimed off waivers
13 QB CJ Beathard - San Francisco
The draft picks
14 QB T.Lawrence
15 RB T.Etienne
16 CB T. Campbell
17 OT W.Little
18 S A.Cisco
19 DT J.Tufele
20 ED J.Smith
21 TE L.Farrell
22 WR J.Camp
The UDFAs
23 CB D.Daniel
24 WR J Imatorbhebhe
25 WR T.Jones
26 LB D.Moses
27 DT K.Randall
28 CB C. Straughter
In after the Draft
29 CB J.Houston - Philadelphia
30 TE T.Tebow
The Outs
Pre-Draft
1 CB Quenton Meeks
2 CB Rashaan Melvin
3 CB Josh Nourse
4 P Cameron Nizialek
5 RB Craig Reynolds
6 DT Dontavius Russell
7 DT Al Woods
8 DT Gabe Wright
9 TE Josh Oliver - Ravens
!0 WR Keenan Cole - Jets
11 QB Mike Glennon - Giants
12 WR Chris Conley - Texans
Post-Draft
13 LB N.Evans
14 C N.Meador
15 S D.Middleton
16 LB J. Giles-Harris
17 RB R. Armstead - waived
18 CB J.Scott - Eagles
19 WR J.Johnson - waived
In
1 RB Carlos Hyde - Seattle
2 WR Phil Dorsett - Seattle
3 S Rayshawn Jenkins - Los Angeles Chargers
4 S Rudy Ford - Philadelphia
5 PR Jamal Agnew - Detroit
6 DT Roy Robertson-Harris - Chicago
7 DE Jahid Ward - Baltimore
8 TE Chris Manhertz - Panthers
9 CB Shaquill Griffin - Seattle
10 DT MAlcolm Brown - New Orleans
11 WR Marvin Jones - Detroit
13 QB CJ Beathard - San Francisco
The draft picks
14 QB T.Lawrence
15 RB T.Etienne
16 CB T. Campbell
17 OT W.Little
18 S A.Cisco
19 DT J.Tufele
20 ED J.Smith
21 TE L.Farrell
22 WR J.Camp
The UDFAs
23 CB D.Daniel
24 WR J Imatorbhebhe
25 WR T.Jones
26 LB D.Moses
27 DT K.Randall
28 CB C. Straughter
In after the Draft
29 CB J.Houston - Philadelphia
30 TE T.Tebow
The Outs
Pre-Draft
1 CB Quenton Meeks
2 CB Rashaan Melvin
3 CB Josh Nourse
4 P Cameron Nizialek
5 RB Craig Reynolds
6 DT Dontavius Russell
7 DT Al Woods
8 DT Gabe Wright
9 TE Josh Oliver - Ravens
!0 WR Keenan Cole - Jets
11 QB Mike Glennon - Giants
12 WR Chris Conley - Texans
Post-Draft
13 LB N.Evans
14 C N.Meador
15 S D.Middleton
16 LB J. Giles-Harris
17 RB R. Armstead - waived
18 CB J.Scott - Eagles
19 WR J.Johnson - waived
- Sep 6, 2005
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ESPN’s Paul Finebaum says Urban Meyer will ‘flame out’ with Jaguars
By Zach Braziller
July 4, 2021 | 1:02pm | Updated
It’s not about if, but when, Urban Meyer will burn out with the Jaguars.
That’s what ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum believes.
“I’ll try not to sound like a broken record, but this is not going to work,” Finebaum said on ESPN’s “Get Up.” “It may work short-term because he has Trevor Lawrence and you can build a team, but ultimately, Urban Meyer is going to flame out. … It’s already happening. This guy does not get along with rules.
“He does not like to be told what to do. It didn’t work at Florida when he fled, it didn’t work at Ohio State when he battled the administration and finally walked off, or was pushed out, and it’s not going to work here.”
Finebaum was specifically referring to Meyer and the Jaguars getting hit with $300K worth of fines by the NFL for OTA violations. But, more than that, Meyer has had a shelf life at other big jobs, at Florida and Ohio State, and has never coached in the NFL before.
By Zach Braziller
July 4, 2021 | 1:02pm | Updated
It’s not about if, but when, Urban Meyer will burn out with the Jaguars.
That’s what ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum believes.
“I’ll try not to sound like a broken record, but this is not going to work,” Finebaum said on ESPN’s “Get Up.” “It may work short-term because he has Trevor Lawrence and you can build a team, but ultimately, Urban Meyer is going to flame out. … It’s already happening. This guy does not get along with rules.
“He does not like to be told what to do. It didn’t work at Florida when he fled, it didn’t work at Ohio State when he battled the administration and finally walked off, or was pushed out, and it’s not going to work here.”
Finebaum was specifically referring to Meyer and the Jaguars getting hit with $300K worth of fines by the NFL for OTA violations. But, more than that, Meyer has had a shelf life at other big jobs, at Florida and Ohio State, and has never coached in the NFL before.
- Sep 6, 2005
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- Fremantle
- Sep 6, 2005
- 145,203
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- AFL Club
- Fremantle
Jags’ Meyer, Baalke subpoenaed in Iowa discrimination suit
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville Jaguars said Wednesday that coach Urban Meyer and general manager Trent Baalke were subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit filed by lawyers for Black players suing former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle for discrimination.
The team said Meyer and Baalke submitted a written response to the subpoena, which is seeking information about the Jaguars’ decision to hire and then fire Doyle in January.
“We respect and will cooperate with the legal process as required,” the team said. “However, the Jaguars have no information that would be relevant to the lawsuit between student-athletes and the University of Iowa.”
The federal lawsuit, filed in Iowa, accuses Hawkeyes staff of demeaning Black players with racial slurs, forcing them to abandon Black hairstyles, fashion and culture to fit the “Iowa Way” promoted by head coach Kirk Ferentz, and retaliating against them for speaking out.
The university agreed to pay Doyle $1.1 million in a resignation agreement in June 2020 after scores of former players said on social media that he had bullied and discriminated against them. Doyle has denied the allegations.
An investigation by an outside law firm found the program’s rules “perpetuated racial and culture biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity” and allowed coaches to demean players without consequence.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Rose earlier released athletic director Gary Barta and current strength coach Raimond Braithwaite as defendants. Also dismissed were allegations that Iowa created and maintained a systemic pattern and practice of unlawful race discrimination and that Ferentz failed to train and supervise his staff.
The former players were allowed to pursue claims of intentional discrimination by offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz, Kirk’s son, and Doyle
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville Jaguars said Wednesday that coach Urban Meyer and general manager Trent Baalke were subpoenaed as part of a lawsuit filed by lawyers for Black players suing former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle for discrimination.
The team said Meyer and Baalke submitted a written response to the subpoena, which is seeking information about the Jaguars’ decision to hire and then fire Doyle in January.
“We respect and will cooperate with the legal process as required,” the team said. “However, the Jaguars have no information that would be relevant to the lawsuit between student-athletes and the University of Iowa.”
The federal lawsuit, filed in Iowa, accuses Hawkeyes staff of demeaning Black players with racial slurs, forcing them to abandon Black hairstyles, fashion and culture to fit the “Iowa Way” promoted by head coach Kirk Ferentz, and retaliating against them for speaking out.
The university agreed to pay Doyle $1.1 million in a resignation agreement in June 2020 after scores of former players said on social media that he had bullied and discriminated against them. Doyle has denied the allegations.
An investigation by an outside law firm found the program’s rules “perpetuated racial and culture biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity” and allowed coaches to demean players without consequence.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Rose earlier released athletic director Gary Barta and current strength coach Raimond Braithwaite as defendants. Also dismissed were allegations that Iowa created and maintained a systemic pattern and practice of unlawful race discrimination and that Ferentz failed to train and supervise his staff.
The former players were allowed to pursue claims of intentional discrimination by offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz, Kirk’s son, and Doyle
- Sep 6, 2005
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- Fremantle
- Sep 6, 2005
- 145,203
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- AFL Club
- Fremantle
Strict silly rules, power trippers
- Sep 6, 2005
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GMs have a god-complex, still, Ramsay was a bit precious in this case. Too high-strung.
Jalen Ramsey directs ire at Dave Caldwell for meeting that led to Jaguars trade request
Posted by Curtis Crabtree on July 16, 2021, 2:35 AM EDT
The end of Jalen Ramsey‘s tenure in Jacksonville was fairly well chronicled at the time of his departure from the team n 2019.
A meeting with Jaguars’ brass irked Ramsey to the point of a trade demand that led to him being dealt to the Los Angeles Rams in October of that year.
Ramsey said at the time some “disrespectful things” were said toward him in that meeting and he called his agent to demand a trade after the interaction. While Ramsey and several members of the Jaguars weren’t particularly fond of team president Tom Coughlin at the time either, Ramsey said that it was former team General Manager Dave Caldwell who delivered the disrespectful comments.
In the Catching Fades podcast with former NFL cornerback Aqib Talib, Ramsey said the meeting involved team owner Shad Khan, Tony Khan, Coughlin and Caldwell. The meeting came after a disagreement between Ramsey and head coach Doug Marrone during a game against the Houston Texans. Ramsey said Tony Khan asked him to come to a meeting with him and his father and was caught by surprise by the attendance of Coughlin and Caldwell as well.
“I get in the office and it’s Tony, Shad, Tom Coughlin, and Dave Caldwell,” Ramsey said. “It’s four of them in there and then it’s just me and they were like standing like in a semi-circle just all looking at me. So I’m hot now, like, first of all, you told me it was just you and pops and now I’m in here [with Coughlin and Caldwell as well].
“Shad started to speak first and was very respectful. You know ‘Jalen we got a lot of respect for you, we’ve got a lot of respect for your game’ this, that whoop-de-whoop… ‘Are you and Doug going to be good? We don’t want anything going on between a key player and our head coach.’ I’m like ‘We good. It is what it is and that’s just part of the game. We’re moving on.
“Tom Coughlin didn’t say nothing the whole time. He was just sitting there staring at me, like trying to give me one of those little ‘I’m going to intimidate you’ kind of looks, but I don’t care about none of that. So I’m just sitting there staring right at him too. Tony said something, too, and was real respectful, again. Basically repeated what his dad said and kind of kept it moving like ‘Man we really think y’all should talk before anybody talks to the media. Y’all two should talk just to make sure y’all good and maybe you need to apologize to him.’
“And then I told him, I said ‘Respectfully, I’m not about to apologize to him.’ I said, ‘That’s a part of the game. Emotions get high and we might get into it. It ain’t no beef, ain’t nothing going on between us. Me and coach good. We’ve always been good. I ain’t about to apologize to him for having high emotions during the game.’ He was like ‘OK, I respect it. Just think about it.’
And that’s when the conversation went another direction altogether, per Ramsey.
“So then Dave Caldwell, who was the GM at the time, he took the total opposite — I guess they were in there playing good cop, bad cop. He took the total opposite approach,” Ramsey said. “He started cussing and started trying to cuss me out, like ‘You need to go [expletive] apologize.’
“I said ‘No, that ain’t happening.’ And then he said something else, but I forgot what he said. You know how when you’re in shock sometimes, you give like that little laugh, like ‘He’s crazy.’ So, I gave him a little grin and he’s like ‘Oh, is this funny to you?’ And I just started shaking my head, and then he was like, ‘Well, just get the [expletive] out!’ And he opened the door, and I just walked out like laughing a little bit, and he slammed the door behind me.”
That’s when Ramsey called his agent and decided it was time for him to leave.
“You [his agent] can call them and tell them or I’ll walk in tomorrow in the morning and I’ll go talk to them about it and I’ll tell them,” Ramsey said.
Approximately a month later, Ramsey was traded to the Rams.
Jalen Ramsey directs ire at Dave Caldwell for meeting that led to Jaguars trade request
Posted by Curtis Crabtree on July 16, 2021, 2:35 AM EDT
The end of Jalen Ramsey‘s tenure in Jacksonville was fairly well chronicled at the time of his departure from the team n 2019.
A meeting with Jaguars’ brass irked Ramsey to the point of a trade demand that led to him being dealt to the Los Angeles Rams in October of that year.
Ramsey said at the time some “disrespectful things” were said toward him in that meeting and he called his agent to demand a trade after the interaction. While Ramsey and several members of the Jaguars weren’t particularly fond of team president Tom Coughlin at the time either, Ramsey said that it was former team General Manager Dave Caldwell who delivered the disrespectful comments.
In the Catching Fades podcast with former NFL cornerback Aqib Talib, Ramsey said the meeting involved team owner Shad Khan, Tony Khan, Coughlin and Caldwell. The meeting came after a disagreement between Ramsey and head coach Doug Marrone during a game against the Houston Texans. Ramsey said Tony Khan asked him to come to a meeting with him and his father and was caught by surprise by the attendance of Coughlin and Caldwell as well.
“I get in the office and it’s Tony, Shad, Tom Coughlin, and Dave Caldwell,” Ramsey said. “It’s four of them in there and then it’s just me and they were like standing like in a semi-circle just all looking at me. So I’m hot now, like, first of all, you told me it was just you and pops and now I’m in here [with Coughlin and Caldwell as well].
“Shad started to speak first and was very respectful. You know ‘Jalen we got a lot of respect for you, we’ve got a lot of respect for your game’ this, that whoop-de-whoop… ‘Are you and Doug going to be good? We don’t want anything going on between a key player and our head coach.’ I’m like ‘We good. It is what it is and that’s just part of the game. We’re moving on.
“Tom Coughlin didn’t say nothing the whole time. He was just sitting there staring at me, like trying to give me one of those little ‘I’m going to intimidate you’ kind of looks, but I don’t care about none of that. So I’m just sitting there staring right at him too. Tony said something, too, and was real respectful, again. Basically repeated what his dad said and kind of kept it moving like ‘Man we really think y’all should talk before anybody talks to the media. Y’all two should talk just to make sure y’all good and maybe you need to apologize to him.’
“And then I told him, I said ‘Respectfully, I’m not about to apologize to him.’ I said, ‘That’s a part of the game. Emotions get high and we might get into it. It ain’t no beef, ain’t nothing going on between us. Me and coach good. We’ve always been good. I ain’t about to apologize to him for having high emotions during the game.’ He was like ‘OK, I respect it. Just think about it.’
And that’s when the conversation went another direction altogether, per Ramsey.
“So then Dave Caldwell, who was the GM at the time, he took the total opposite — I guess they were in there playing good cop, bad cop. He took the total opposite approach,” Ramsey said. “He started cussing and started trying to cuss me out, like ‘You need to go [expletive] apologize.’
“I said ‘No, that ain’t happening.’ And then he said something else, but I forgot what he said. You know how when you’re in shock sometimes, you give like that little laugh, like ‘He’s crazy.’ So, I gave him a little grin and he’s like ‘Oh, is this funny to you?’ And I just started shaking my head, and then he was like, ‘Well, just get the [expletive] out!’ And he opened the door, and I just walked out like laughing a little bit, and he slammed the door behind me.”
That’s when Ramsey called his agent and decided it was time for him to leave.
“You [his agent] can call them and tell them or I’ll walk in tomorrow in the morning and I’ll go talk to them about it and I’ll tell them,” Ramsey said.
Approximately a month later, Ramsey was traded to the Rams.
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A11dAtP0w3R
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That my boy, lets go
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Urban Meyer to use Winners and Losers drill to help determine Jacksonville Jaguars' cuts
7:09 AM AEST
Michael DiRocco
ESPN Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Tim Tebow lined up against Chris Manhertz, and the two players went at it one-on-one in a special teams blocking drill at the Jacksonville Jaguars' practice on Wednesday.
Manhertz won the matchup, and immediately "Winner, Manhertz" was broadcast over the loudspeaker. The two went at it three more times, and the final tally was 2-2 -- and each time the winner's name was announced.
That happened throughout the practice with various one-on-one drills, and while it's part of coach Urban Meyer's plan to create a competitive atmosphere, keeping track of the winners and losers also is going to be a significant part of how he and his staff make roster decisions.
Win more of those matchups than you lose, and do so in whatever other competitions the Jaguars will track throughout the rest of camp, and you'll have a much better chance of making the team.
Jaguars tight ends Chris Manhertz and Tim Tebow went up against each other in a special teams blocking drill Wednesday in one of Urban Meyer's Winners and Losers drills. Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire
"A big roster's going to go to a smaller roster, and I think to be fair to players -- we all have so much respect [and] this is a way guys make a living -- I don't believe in subjectivity," Meyer said. "I believe in, what's your record? Every man's got a record. What is it? You are what your record [is]. If you lose a lot but you have a lot of potential, that's not real good.
"Just over the course of my career, I can give you example after example [of players who] maybe they're a little slow, but they just never lose."
Meyer first started what he calls Winners and Losers during his second season at Florida in 2006, a season that ended with the Gators routing Ohio State to win the BCS national title. Two years later, the Gators won it again, and Meyer took the approach with him to Ohio State 2012. Two years later, the Buckeyes won the national title. When he made his move to the NFL this past January, he decided to continue to do it, though the stakes of the one-on-one competitions could be higher with the Jaguars than they were with the Gators and Buckeyes because Meyer didn't have to cut his roster almost in half in college.
He used the results to determine starters and playing time in college, but now, when he and the staff pull out the sheets of results, he'll be using them to decide who gets to stay. If there's two players on the bubble for the same spot, the player who won more is likely going to get it.
"Well, I haven't done that before [used it to determine cuts]. This is going to be the first [time]," Meyer said. "But I've had to make decisions on who starts, and it's not fair to players to say, Well, I'm starting [you] because I like you, or because you're from Ohio. It's just: Here's the stats. They say statistics are for losers, and my comment is usually losers say statistics are for losers.
"So you've got a record. What's your record? How's it going? I just think that's a complete mentality. That Tom Brady guy, his record's really good. You move him to the Buccaneers, it's really good. New England Patriots, really good."
Wednesday was the first Winners and Losers day for the Jaguars, and the two players who spoke after practice -- defensive end Dawuane Smoot and receiver Laviska Shenault -- said they didn't mind hearing Fernando Lovo, Meyer's chief of staff, announcing the winners after each rep. Smoot said it was motivating.
"I feel like it definitely just keeps that competitive spirit going," Smoot said. "We're all trying to hear our own name on the [public-address system] anyways out there on the big field, so just hearing it out on the practice field, it's great."
It's certainly unusual at the NFL level, but it's essentially another way to test the players and see how they respond in competitive situations.
"There's one way to do it and that's scrimmage forever, and you can't do that," Meyer said. "But you can create scenarios where it's one-on-one and then everybody's got a score. What's your record?"
7:09 AM AEST
Michael DiRocco
ESPN Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Tim Tebow lined up against Chris Manhertz, and the two players went at it one-on-one in a special teams blocking drill at the Jacksonville Jaguars' practice on Wednesday.
Manhertz won the matchup, and immediately "Winner, Manhertz" was broadcast over the loudspeaker. The two went at it three more times, and the final tally was 2-2 -- and each time the winner's name was announced.
That happened throughout the practice with various one-on-one drills, and while it's part of coach Urban Meyer's plan to create a competitive atmosphere, keeping track of the winners and losers also is going to be a significant part of how he and his staff make roster decisions.
Win more of those matchups than you lose, and do so in whatever other competitions the Jaguars will track throughout the rest of camp, and you'll have a much better chance of making the team.
Jaguars tight ends Chris Manhertz and Tim Tebow went up against each other in a special teams blocking drill Wednesday in one of Urban Meyer's Winners and Losers drills. Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire
"A big roster's going to go to a smaller roster, and I think to be fair to players -- we all have so much respect [and] this is a way guys make a living -- I don't believe in subjectivity," Meyer said. "I believe in, what's your record? Every man's got a record. What is it? You are what your record [is]. If you lose a lot but you have a lot of potential, that's not real good.
"Just over the course of my career, I can give you example after example [of players who] maybe they're a little slow, but they just never lose."
Meyer first started what he calls Winners and Losers during his second season at Florida in 2006, a season that ended with the Gators routing Ohio State to win the BCS national title. Two years later, the Gators won it again, and Meyer took the approach with him to Ohio State 2012. Two years later, the Buckeyes won the national title. When he made his move to the NFL this past January, he decided to continue to do it, though the stakes of the one-on-one competitions could be higher with the Jaguars than they were with the Gators and Buckeyes because Meyer didn't have to cut his roster almost in half in college.
He used the results to determine starters and playing time in college, but now, when he and the staff pull out the sheets of results, he'll be using them to decide who gets to stay. If there's two players on the bubble for the same spot, the player who won more is likely going to get it.
"Well, I haven't done that before [used it to determine cuts]. This is going to be the first [time]," Meyer said. "But I've had to make decisions on who starts, and it's not fair to players to say, Well, I'm starting [you] because I like you, or because you're from Ohio. It's just: Here's the stats. They say statistics are for losers, and my comment is usually losers say statistics are for losers.
"So you've got a record. What's your record? How's it going? I just think that's a complete mentality. That Tom Brady guy, his record's really good. You move him to the Buccaneers, it's really good. New England Patriots, really good."
Wednesday was the first Winners and Losers day for the Jaguars, and the two players who spoke after practice -- defensive end Dawuane Smoot and receiver Laviska Shenault -- said they didn't mind hearing Fernando Lovo, Meyer's chief of staff, announcing the winners after each rep. Smoot said it was motivating.
"I feel like it definitely just keeps that competitive spirit going," Smoot said. "We're all trying to hear our own name on the [public-address system] anyways out there on the big field, so just hearing it out on the practice field, it's great."
It's certainly unusual at the NFL level, but it's essentially another way to test the players and see how they respond in competitive situations.
"There's one way to do it and that's scrimmage forever, and you can't do that," Meyer said. "But you can create scenarios where it's one-on-one and then everybody's got a score. What's your record?"
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Gardner Minshew taking the Hernán Cortés approach to fight for QB job
Posted by Josh Alper on August 6, 2021, 5:19 PM EDT
Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew has come up with another interesting take on his view of the quarterback depth chart in Jacksonville.
Minshew said last month that he hasn’t “taken a s–t in weeks” because “number two isn’t an option for me.” After taking Trevor Lawrence first overall, it’s certainly the leading option in the minds of everyone but Minshew if he’s still in Jacksonville for Week 1 but he made it clear again on Friday that he isn’t mentally settling for the backup job.
He did so by becoming the first NFL player in memory to reference Hernán Cortés’ landing in Mexico in 1519.
“I think any time you go into anything thinking that losing or second best is an option, most of the time that’s what you’re going to get,” Minshew said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “That’s like when Cortés landed in Veracruz with 600 dudes trying to take the Aztec Empire. You know what he said? He said, ‘Burn the boats.’ He said, ‘We’re going back on their boats.’ That’s kind of a mindset that stuck with me pretty much since I heard that story.”
Cortés wound up toppling the Aztecs over the next few years. Minshew toppling Lawrence wouldn’t have the same geopolitical ramifications, but it would be a bigger upset.
Posted by Josh Alper on August 6, 2021, 5:19 PM EDT
Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew has come up with another interesting take on his view of the quarterback depth chart in Jacksonville.
Minshew said last month that he hasn’t “taken a s–t in weeks” because “number two isn’t an option for me.” After taking Trevor Lawrence first overall, it’s certainly the leading option in the minds of everyone but Minshew if he’s still in Jacksonville for Week 1 but he made it clear again on Friday that he isn’t mentally settling for the backup job.
He did so by becoming the first NFL player in memory to reference Hernán Cortés’ landing in Mexico in 1519.
“I think any time you go into anything thinking that losing or second best is an option, most of the time that’s what you’re going to get,” Minshew said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “That’s like when Cortés landed in Veracruz with 600 dudes trying to take the Aztec Empire. You know what he said? He said, ‘Burn the boats.’ He said, ‘We’re going back on their boats.’ That’s kind of a mindset that stuck with me pretty much since I heard that story.”
Cortés wound up toppling the Aztecs over the next few years. Minshew toppling Lawrence wouldn’t have the same geopolitical ramifications, but it would be a bigger upset.
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