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CB Jalen Ramsey on Ravens' Steve Smith: I don't respect him as a man

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Nearly 1,000 career receptions and being ranked in the top 10 of the NFL's all-time receiving yardage list cuts no weight with Jacksonville Jaguars rookie cornerback Jalen Ramsey.

Ramsey, the No. 5 pick of the 2016 NFL draft, and Ravens wide receiver Steve Smith got into an exchange on the field after Baltimore's 19-17 victory on Sunday and had to be separated. Ramsey said he thinks Smith was upset because of the way Ramsey was covering him -- and said he has no respect for the 37-year-old wide receiver.

"Ya'll tell me who got in whose head," Ramsey said. "He came up to me after the game, you feel me? Y'all tell me who got in whose head. He's an old man acting like that.

"Ain't nobody worried about him. He came up to me, you know what I'm saying, on some disrespectful stuff. The game's over with. You still mad 'cause I was locking you up? All right, go sleep on that. I ain't trying to hear that after the game."

Smith caught eight passes for 87 yards. He had four of those catches in the fourth quarter, including a 5-yarder to convert a fourth-and-2 on the Ravens' game-winning drive.

The impetus of the postgame exchange came with little more than three minutes to play, when Ramsey and Smith were penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct stemming from an altercation after Jaguars linebacker Paul Posluszny intercepted Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

"It is what it is," Ramsey said. "As a player, he's still a good player. I'll say that about him. But I don't respect him as a man."

Smith fired back at Ramsey in two tweets posted later Sunday evening, proclaiming, "I got cleats with stronger thread [than] you!!!"

On Monday morning, Smith appeared on ESPN's Mike and Mike and said he will follow Ramsey after he retires at the end of the season.

"Guess what, 16 years, I'm done playing football and (will) sit behind a mic," Smith said. "The eye in the sky doesn't lie. I'm going to have a lot of Sundays to evaluate a lot of players. He will be a player I will be wearing my glasses with so I don't miss anything."