JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Jalen Ramsey and Steve Smith had to be separated in the fourth quarter and again after the game.
Jacksonville’s rookie cornerback even refused to talk to Baltimore’s veteran receiver following the Ravens’ 19-17 victory Sunday. Ramsey didn’t hold back in the locker room, though, a move Smith later questioned on Twitter.
“Once you’re beating you’re opponent who’s in front of you physically and psychologically, they tend to get mad like that,” Ramsey said. “I don’t care how old he is. I don’t care. You line up in front of me, you’re going to get me. If that made him angry, then he can go home and sleep on it. I don’t care. You ain’t going to try me as a man. At the end of the day, it is what it is.”
Smith had long left EverBank Field when he saw Ramsey’s quotes and defended himself on Twitter.
“I gave U every opportunity to speak face to face,” Smith wrote. “But you found your voice safely behind closed doors. Young man I don’t need ur respect!”
One of the league’s all-time trash-talkers, Smith wasn’t done, either.
“In 5 to 10 u will be retiring and they will be taking my measurements for something you will NEVER BE. #HOFer. I got cleats with stronger thread then you!!!” Smith added.
Ramsey and Smith were both flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for jawing and pushing late in the fourth quarter.
Smith finished with eight catches for 87 yards, including a fourth-down reception that led to Justin Tucker’s go-ahead, 54-yard field goal with 1:02 remaining. Ramsey said few, if any, of those catches came on him.
“He was lined up on me a couple of times at the beginning of the game,” Ramsey said. “Not so much at the end. He’s still a good player. I’ll say that about him. But I don’t respect him as a man.”
Smith approached Ramsey after the game, apparently to talk about what happened on the field, but Ramsey wouldn’t acknowledge him.
“Ain’t nobody worried about him,” Ramsey said. “He came up to me on some disrespectful stuff. The game’s over with. You still mad ’cause I was locking you up? All right, go sleep on that. I ain’t trying to hear that after the game. … He’s an old man acting like that.”
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