Jalen Ramsey was so close to playing in his first Super Bowl in his second season in the NFL.
Jalen Ramsey and the Jacksonville Jaguars have a lot to be proud of after the season they’ve had. They went from (3-13) a year ago to (10-6) this year and a few minutes shy of making the Super Bowl.
Ramsey established himself as an All-Pro cornerback and arguably the best cornerback in the NFL.
However, for all of those things accomplished it doesn’t take away from the sting of defeat when they were oh so close.
There were a number of questionable things that happened in the AFC Championship game, but you won’t hear any excuses after the game from the FSU alum:
Jalen Ramsey
— Brian Chojnacki (@BrianMChojnacki) January 21, 2018
“Nothing positive comes from this. We took the L, I’m not going to play around and say motivation or anything, our goal was to win, we didn’t win.”#Jaguars
The fact of the matter is the Patriots has a lot of help from the referees (as usual).
The Patriots and Tom Brady are amazing, but when you get 88 more yards than your opponent in penalties, and the refs take away a touchdown from your opponents by incorrectly calling a player down after they recovered a fumble, it is REALLY tough to lose. #JAXvsNE #AFCChampionship
— John Ziegler (@Zigmanfreud) January 21, 2018
Thoughts
Listen, when you’re a vocal player like Jalen Ramsey you’re going to get trolled to death when you take a L. Especially when you make statements like you’re going to win the Super Bowl before you actually get to the game itself.
Ramsey’s that type of player and I’m sure he’d do it again if he had it to do over. So it would do him no favors to mention the discrepancies in penalties called against the Patriots in the game.
The referees called ONE penalty on the Patriots the entire game. That’s ridiculous.
However, the third and 18 conversion the Jacksonville Jaguars defense allowed with New England pinned deep in their own territory is something that likely changed the game. In fact, I tweeted this right after the play happened.
That 3rd and 18 conversion might haunt Jax later...
— ChopChat.com (@ChopChat_) January 21, 2018
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So even though Jacksonville had to beat the greatest quarterback of all time and the referees, they still beat themselves on a critical play in the game that gave New England life.
No excuses indeed Jalen.