Leonard Fournette’s public call for the Jacksonville Jaguars to sign Cam Newton may mean the running back has some explaining to do.
Jaguars coach Doug Marrone told NBCSN’s “Lunch Talk Live” on Friday that players who publicly call for new signings will have to justify that call as being best for the team — and potentially work things out one-on-one with aggrieved teammates.
“You know, with players, you’re always going to have friends [who say] like, ‘Hey, this guy should come, or that guy should come,’ and you try to talk to the players about talking about the team and doing what is best and keeping a single message, but then a lot of times you’re going to have to be able to communicate in that locker room, I mean that is the big thing with me,” Marrone said, via Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk. “I mean, we all talk about men are all men and everything, when you are in that locker room, you’ve got to say, ‘Hey listen, I said this because I really think this is best for the team,’ and if you can’t say this is what’s best for the team, then you’re going to have issues. … It’s not like a coach can get in between two players and fix something. You know, these things have to be fixed among each other at times and the coach can go in there and try to guide it through.”
In other words, Fournette may have to have a little chat with Gardner Minshew over the running back’s comments about adding Newton. To be fair to Fournette, he did say that he meant no disrespect toward Minshew, but you can understand why the running back probably would have been better off keeping his quarterback preferences to himself.
As it stands, it doesn’t look like the Jaguars are poised to take Fournette’s advice anyway. Given the lack of a guaranteed starting job available, Newton might not be interested in Jacksonville even if there was an offer.
