Patriots' Adam Butler calls Jalen Ramsey's guarantee 'a bold statement'
— -- FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots won't say if Jalen Ramsey's Super Bowl guarantee is on their bulletin board, but it's definitely on their minds as they prepare for Sunday's AFC Championship Game.
"If you're going to make a statement like that, you better be able to back it up," Patriots defensive tackle Adam Butler said Wednesday.
Ramsey, star cornerback of the Jacksonville Jaguars, made headlines with his pep-rally boast last Sunday at EverBank Field, telling a large crowd that "we are going to the Super Bowl, and we are going to win that b----."
The quote has resonated inside the Patriots' locker room.
Asked if Ramsey's prediction indicates the Jaguars are looking past the Patriots, Butler said, "In a sense, yeah."
Butler also said, "It's a bold statement to make. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. But like I said, be humble or be humbled. That's all I can really say about that."
The two teams meet at 3:05 p.m. ET Sunday at Gillette Stadium, where the heavily favored Patriots will be playing in their seventh straight AFC Championship Game. The Jaguars are playing in the game for the first time since 1999.
The buttoned-down Patriots rarely provide any bulletin-board fodder for opponents, but they've been known to use perceived slights as motivation.
"The Super Bowl stuff? I mean, obviously, that's his game," Patriots cornernback Eric Rowe said of Ramsey. "He's a confident dude. ... Obviously, they're happy to go to the championship game, but, you know, that mindset of thinking ahead of yourself, I don't think it's a good idea.
"We saw what happened to the? Steelers," Rowe added. "But on our end, obviously, we're not thinking ahead to the [Super Bowl] because we have to get past them. So, we heard it, but we're not too focused on it because we have to focus on doing our job for the game."
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