Jalen Ramsey- The Most Interesting Corner In The World

What’s more interesting than the exquisite trash-talk of Jaguars star cornerback Jalen Ramsey? The person behind it.

- Mina Kimes

Before he was named an All-Pro cornerback, before he was punched by A.J. Green, before he was suspended for s--t-talking the media and then proceeded to s--t-talk the entire NFL, before he stood on the sideline of Jacksonville’s field in a splendid shearling coat and predicted, incorrectly, that the Jaguars were going to go to the Super Bowl and “win that bitch”—before any of those things happened—Jalen Ramsey sat on a bench and cried.

It was Nov. 20, 2016, and Jacksonville was about to lose to Detroit and drop to a dismal 2–8. With less than 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the camera lingered on the rookie cornerback for what felt like an eternity. His eyes welled up and he stared Binto the middle distance, shaking his head like a patient who had just received a devastating prognosis. It was a raw, gutting display of vulnerability and a rare glimpse into an athlete’s psyche. While Ramsey is a fount of highlight-worthy plays and oh-no-hedidn’t quotes, the shot of him silently weeping during a meaningless game might’ve been more revealing than anything he’s said over the past two years.

Naturally, he was mocked on the internet. And yet: When I ask him why he cried that day in Detroit, he doesn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest. “That was a low moment,” he says flatly before taking a slurp of his Powerade slush. It’s June, and we’re sitting across from each other in a Sonic Drive-In in Smyrna, Tennessee, the sleepy Nashville suburb where Ramsey grew up. “It was like, ‘This is getting old. Don’t nobody care. Maybe I shouldn’t care too.’”