Jaguars suspend Dante Fowler and Jalen Ramsey after Sunday behavior

The Jaguars have serious expectations and hopes for 2018. However, with those expectations come more scrutiny and Sunday at the conclusion of their practice, poor conduct of two of their players caused the team to take action against them.

First, as we wrote earlier Sunday defensive end Dante Fowler instigated a near fight with fellow lineman Yannick Ngakoue at the conclusion of practice. With numerous players involved at trying to separate the two and keep the peace, it was not a good look.

And during the video captured by Phillip Heilman of the Florida Times-Union, you could hear defensive back Jalen Ramsey screaming at him from a distance with profanity to stop taping the incident on his phone.

Well, the Jaguars moved quickly to take action against both of them. First, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport had info on Ramsey’s punishment:

#Jaguars All-Pro CB Jalen Ramsey was suspended by the team for a week, sources say, after going after local media for what he believes is unfair treatment of his teammates especially Dante Fowler. He authored several tweets in support of his teammates & disdain for local media.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 12, 2018

Ramsey sent essentially a threatening tweet at Heilman, that he has since deleted.

Then, the Jaguars confirmed to Heilman that Fowler was also going to be disciplined for this week. And, that will include joint practices and then a Saturday night game with the Vikings.

The #Jaguars confirm that CB Jalen Ramsey and DE Dante Fowler have each been suspended for incidents that occurred Sunday.

— Phillip Heilman (@phillip_heilman) August 12, 2018

So, both players were immediately sent a message by VP of Football Tom Coughlin, coach Doug Marrone and the Jaguars organization that they won’t tolerate that kind of conduct.

Interestingly, coming off an All-Pro 2017, Ramsey showed up late to camp after the birth of his daughter, missing four workouts and now will miss several more and the game Saturday.

Fowler had missed all of camp, including game one last Thursday, while on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list. He was just activated on Saturday. Sunday was his second practice, and near the end of it he delivered an out of bounds hit on TE James O’Shaughnessy that caused both sides of the ball to react.

This further casts Fowler’s short and long term future into question.

The team already announced earlier in the off season they were not picking up the fifth year option on his rookie deal.

The NFL then suspended Fowler one game under their conduct policy for his no contest plea to assault and battery charges from an incident last summer. Now, he can’t practice this week.

The team is scheduled to be off on Monday and it’s unclear if coach Doug Marrone will still speak with the media or will wait until Tuesday prior to their practice.