JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jaguars spent a week fuming over what they believed was a sign of disrespect by Pittsburgh Steelers players looking ahead to the AFC Championship Game beyond their divisional-round contest.
Now one of them may have provided some bulletin board material for the New England Patriots after cornerback Jalen Ramsey guaranteed a victory over the Patriots in Gillette Stadium on Sunday while speaking to thousands of fans at EverBank Field who had gathered to welcome the team home after their 45-42 victory over the Steelers.
"I ain't got too much to say, but make sure you all bring that same energy out next week and the week after," Ramsey said into a microphone. "We are going to the Super Bowl, and we are going to win that b----. We are going to win that b----."
Patriots players asked about Ramsey's guarantee Monday said they didn't take the boast as a sign of disrespect.
"Jalen Ramsey is a good player. He talks a lot of trash, that's a part of his game and you can't take it away from him. He's confident. He should be confident in his team. He has a really good football team," Patriots safety Duron Harmon, one of the team's captains, said on Monday.
"The top 2 AFC teams are left and he's a part of one of them. His approach to the game is different from ours, but we can't knock him for it."
Ramsey's teammates said on Monday that what he said was different from what Steelers safety Mike Mitchell and coach Mike Tomlin did. They talked openly weeks ago about playing the Patriots in the AFC title game, and running back Le'Veon Bell sent out a tweet on Saturday night that guaranteed a victory.
"We're so close [to the Super Bowl] that I think it's OK to say, 'Hey, we're going to do this,'" defensive tackle Malik Jackson said. "I said that in April, so it's one of those things that I think he believes in himself after the game he just had, locking down one of the best receivers in the game. He's pretty hyped, and he wants to let everybody know he's hyped.
"So I think he's just happy and he understands that we have a giant in front of us and we've just got to pay all the attention to this team and we don't even know who's going to play in the Super Bowl because we're not looking ahead of that."
Nose tackle Marcell Dareus said he didn't have a problem with what Ramsey said.
"I didn't think anything about it," Dareus said. "That's how he felt. That was on his mind. That was on his heart, and he solely believed that."
As for whether he felt Ramsey's comments were any different from what Mitchell or Bell said, he responded: "I don't even think about the Steelers. They're in the past."
Nose tackle Abry Jones kind of backed Ramsey up, though.
"To me, it's just a man that has confidence in his team," Jones said. "What's he going to say? He knows what we're going up there to do. It's not like he ain't saying nothing that's not true.
"It's not too hard to not look toward the Super Bowl when you see who you're going against. You're going against a team that demands all your attention. It's nice to look ahead now, but when it's time to go to work, we're going to go to work."
Defensive end Yannick Ngakoue said he had no issue with what Ramsey said, especially because he doesn't believe the Jaguars will be trash talking the rest of the week.
"He's going to talk, but we're going to show up," said Ngakoue, who had a strip sack of Ben Roethlisberger that resulted in Telvin Smith's 50-yard fumble return for a touchdown. "I just don't like when people talk all week. You talk reckless and you lose."
Ramsey was unavailable to the media during the Jaguars' open-locker-room period on Monday.
The Jaguars are 1-10 all time against New England, which includes an 0-7 mark in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where Sunday's game will be played. They are 0-6 all time against Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. The Jaguars' lone victory came in the 1998 playoffs in Jacksonville. The Patriots were forced to start Scott Zolak at quarterback in place of an injured Drew Bledsoe.
ESPN's Mike Reiss contributed to this report.