Kelly: Dolphins’ do-everything CB Jalen Ramsey says ‘I need to be doing more’ | Opinion
“What more can I do?” Jalen Ramsey asks in a moment of transparency, an instance of vulnerability one of the NFL’s toughest cornerbacks — if not the toughest pound-for-pound player in the game — shares this week.
“What more can I give so we can win these games?” the Miami Dolphins cornerback asks, explaining his mind-set heading into this critical five-game December stretch, where he and his teammates realize Miami’s playoff aspirations likely get extinguished if this 5-7 team suffers another loss, just one, failing to deliver 10 wins.
“What do I need to do to make that momentum-changing play?” Ramsey asks. “I don’t want to be this close. I want it to be done.”
That’s the mind-set of an elite player striving for greatness on a Dolphins team that has been relatively inconsistent all season, if not all decade, or two.
Ramsey joined the Dolphins in 2023 intent on changing the culture.
Even though Ramsey, who is having what will likely be his eighth Pro Bowl-caliber season, is probably the most consistent performer on the 2024 team, the three-time All-Pro selection is convinced he’s not doing enough to get Miami over the hump.
He missed a tackle on a big gain in last week’s 30-17 loss to the Green Bay Packers. He wasn’t alone considering the Dolphins missed 20 tackles in that embarrassing loss, but Ramsey expects more of himself.
His youngins — the cornerbacks under his tutelage — have struggled at times this season. Is he being a good enough mentor?
Should he be shadowing upper-echelon receivers regularly — traveling with elites such as Davante Adams, whom he will likely line up against from time to time in Sunday’s home game against the New York Jets (3-9)?
Maybe he should be working in the nickel more, playing closer to the line of scrimmage?
“I’m working,” said Ramsey, who has contributed 45 tackles, two interceptions, one sack and eight pass breakups this season. “No matter how well I played the week before, there’s something very intentional I’m working on during the week that I didn’t do up to my standards the week before.”
That’s how the good become great.
It’s how a Pro Bowl talent becomes a generational player, and that’s what Ramsey’s aspiring to be.
The former Florida State standout wants his name brought up, right alongside Deion Sanders, Darrelle Revis, Champ Bailey, Dick “Night Train” Lane, in the conversation when the greatest cornerback of all-time gets debated, and to reach that point Ramsey realizes his teams need to win consistently, and win big.
He helped the Jacksonville Jaguars get to the AFC Championship Game before forcing his way off that franchise, joining the Los Angeles Rams, which he won a Super Bowl with.
Now it’s time to take the Dolphins, which acquired him from the Rams via a trade and redid his deal, making him the second-highest-paid cornerback in the NFL before this season started, to greater heights.
But so far, Ramsey’s two seasons the Dolphins haven’t lived up to his standards.
Ramsey lectured his teammates about taking on a bully mentality during training camp. Clearly that mind-set hasn’t taken hold yet.
This season Miami hasn’t achieved its goal of dethroning the Buffalo Bills as the superior team in the AFC East, and the Dolphins have an uphill journey playing for the franchise’s fifth straight winning season, and possibly a third straight playoff bid.
But neither is guaranteed, and Ramsey doesn’t want to hear the excuses, or justifications why it didn’t happen.
The way his brain works he didn’t make it happen.
And he needs to be doing more.
This week the Dolphins face one of the best receiver duos in the NFL in Adams and Garrett Wilson, who was the only player Ramsey was allowed to shadow last season.
It helps that he will have fellow boundary starter Kendall Fuller back in the fold, playing his first game in a month after sustaining his second concussion of the season. Fuller’s return will allow Ramsey to be more fluid, varying his role more, and that’s when defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver’s defense is at it’s best.
“I think the stress isn’t on Jalen [Ramsey] so much as it puts pressure on everybody around them to know their jobs,” Weaver said, addressing Ramsey’s ability to shadow upper echelon receivers. “When you can play somebody into the boundary or at a particular position, then everybody else, they kind of fall into place and just know they’ve got to learn that one particular spot. Once you start moving guys around, there’s a trickle down with everybody around them. To me, that’s where the weight is.”
Now that the Dolphins have a veteran in Fuller who can shoulder that burden, maybe it’s time for Weaver and Ramsey to turn up the volume on Miami’s best defender, seeing if he can lead the charge on a strong finish to the season.
“I’m confident and all that. I’ve been that guy,” said Ramsey, who has a 75.8 rating when quarterbacks target receivers he’s covering. “I get on the line. I get hands on you. I’m pressing you up, it’s over. I’m not getting crazy targets. Teams go away from me a lot. [Offenses are] on alert when I’m at nickel, worried I’m blitzing, but I need to capitalize on it more. I need to be doing more.”
