With much of the attention in the NFL landscape ahead of training camps opening up around the league focusing on contract situations with Trey Hendrickson in Cincinnati, T.J. Watt in Pittsburgh and Micah Parsons in Dallas, the Jalen Ramsey situation in Miami is starting to heat up and garner more attention.
For ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who appeared on the Pat McAfee Show Friday afternoon, he expects the Dolphins’ star defensive back to be traded by the start of training camp, and believes that Ramsey would prefer to head back to the West Coast, naming teams like the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers as potential destinations.
“The Dolphins continue to have conversations about trading Jalen Ramsey, and I think that a trade there will get done,” Schefter said regarding the Ramsey situation with the Dolphins, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “The question is, when does it get done? Does it get done next week, the week after, prior to the start of training camp? I don’t know exactly when it’s gonna be, but Jalen Ramsey will get traded. It’ll be, I would expect, before the start of training camp.
“We’ll see how it shakes out, where he goes. I think he would like to go to the West Coast, to the Los Angeles Rams, Chargers, somewhere like that. And we’ll see how that happens.”
The Dolphins have reportedly been shopping Ramsey, who turns 31 in October, for a few months now. He’s still under contract through the 2028 season, too.
While Ramsey did not request a trade, Dolphins’ GM Chris Grier stated back in April that the two sides came to the conclusion that Ramsey should be traded after multiple conversations, putting an All-Pro defensive back on the trade block.
The Rams have been talked about quite a bit for Ramsey as he previously played for Los Angeles under head coach Sean McVay from midway through the 2019 season through 2022, winning a Super Bowl with the Rams in 2021. Ahead of the 2023 NFL Draft, the Rams traded Ramsey to the Dolphins, where he’s spent the last two seasons.
Now, he could be on the move again, and could even return to the Rams, though McVay stated this offseason that a trade for Ramsey would be complicated. Any team trading for Ramsey, even including the Pittsburgh Steelers, would find it very complicated due to his contract and his age.
Of course, the thing about wanting to play on the West Coast was the same thing said about wide receiver DK Metcalf before he was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, leading to Metcalf denying ever making that statement after requesting a trade from the Seahawks.
The ties to the West Coast are there for Ramsey, but he’s from Tennessee and has spent a majority of his football career — even in college — on the eastern part of the country.
“The price tag is something that I think if it weren’t there, and let’s just say he we’re a free agent, I think there would be more interest in him than there is now. There aren’t a lot of teams that are ready, willing, and able to foot the bill for what it would take to take and Jalen Ramsey,” Schefter said of a Ramsey trade. “And so that’s why there’s gotta be some discussion with the Dolphins and what they’re willing to take on and what the team’s willing to pay and how the trade would work out.
“But I would expect that he gets traded at some point here.”
He’ll turn 31 in October and is coming off of a down 2024 season with the Dolphins. Though he played 1,027 snaps for the Dolphins last year and graded out at a 76.9 overall from Pro Football Focus, bouncing back from a rough 2023 season, Ramsey allowed a career-best receiving percentage at 70.8% of targets going for catches, allowing 46 receptions for 546 yards and two touchdowns.
Ramsey also had just five pass breakups on the season and two interceptions, with the second interception coming in Week 10 of the season.
He remains a big name at the position though, and can still move around in the secondary, whether that’s on the boundary, in the slot or even lining up some at safety.
A move to Pittsburgh has been dismissed by long-time Steelers’ beat writer Gerry Dulac, and that makes some sense as the Steelers have their outside cornerbacks seemingly set with Joey Porter Jr., Darius Slay, Cory Trice Jr. and Brandin Echols, though they could financially make it work to acquire Ramsey as part of a big swing.
But for Schefter, a West Coast move seems like the most likely outcome for Ramsey as his time in Miami is all but over.
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