Bills-Jaguars was the Trash Bowl, and not just because both teams are trash. This one had been circled on the calendars ever since Jags corner Jalen Ramsey called Josh Allen “trash” in a magazine interview, and then went deep on exactly why the Bills’ rookie QB was, allegedly, trash.
Well, the Jaguars are so awful this year that Ramsey has largely been reduced to bromides. It’s way less fun. He was even downright placatory after Sunday’s 24-21 Bills win, in which Allen tossed for 160 yards and a touchdown on eight of 19 passes, and added 99 rushing yards and another score. That’s not exactly great, but also decidedly not trash.
It didn’t take long for Allen to target Ramsey, finding Kelvin Benjamin for 32 yards on the Bills’ second drive:
Later in the first quarter, the Jags blew a zone coverage—it was Ramsey who didn’t get back nearly deep enough—and Allen connected with Robert Foster for a 75-yard touchdown:
So, who’s trash? At least once the Jags came back to tie the game before halftime, Ramsey was standing by his evaluation:
But when all was said and done and the Bills had won the battle of 3-7 teams and Ramsey had jogged off the field and blown kisses to a booing Buffalo crowd, Ramsey softened his tone on Allen a little bit, and shared his opinion on, uh, opinions.
“The good thing about the world we live in is everybody can have an opinion. And, um, you know, I stick by my opinions, usually,” Ramsey said. “[Allen] hurt us with his feet. He did enough for their team to get a win. That’s really what matters at the end of the day, so it doesn’t matter what I said or anything like that. I’m sure that’s what he was thinking on his side. It doesn’t matter. People have opinions every day.”
“People have opinions every day” is a disappointing comedown from Ramsey’s preseason shit-talk, but a season like this will do that to a player. And I guess his only other option is to call his own teammates trash, which would be delightful but would have to wait until Ramsey potentially gets traded this offseason.
The Jaguars fired their offensive coordinator this morning, which will definitely fix everything. It briefly blew my mind to remember that Bills-Jags was a rematch of a playoff game just last year, but as trash as both these teams might be, only one has a quarterback who’s going to get better.