It’s no secret that the Jacksonville Jaguars were a mess in 2019, but A.J. Bouye makes it sound like one of the worst environments he’d been in during his NFL career.
The veteran cornerback was traded to the Denver Broncos this offseason, and reflected a bit on his time in Jacksonville. His description of his final two years there after the Jaguars’ trip to the 2018 AFC Championship game is a brutal one, from players not getting along to what he described as “the Tom Coughlin thing.”
“I just never was a part of something like that,” Bouye told SiriusXM NFL Radio, via Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk. “Being in Houston before that and even seeing how the guys in Denver just gelling together with the chemistry between the players and the coaches. It was just something different and I didn’t know how to handle that. … It was so many things. From fighting in the locker room and disagreements to people wanting to be gone, I’ve just never seen that before.”
The fall of the Jaguars after that title game appearance was really remarkable. Bringing in Coughlin as the team’s executive vice president was a disaster, as he clashed with players so much that the NFLPA actually warned players against playing for the franchise while he was running it. Add in a dysfunctional locker room and it’s no wonder the Jaguars have won just 11 games since the end of the 2017 season.
Bouye was traded to the Broncos in March. After all that happened in Jacksonville, it’s understandable why he’d be thrilled with the move.
