Leonard Fournette pulled no punches when discussing Jay Gruden on the latest episode of the “4th And South” podcast. The former NFL running back said their relationship was fake and accused Gruden of being two-faced during his time in Jacksonville.
Leonard Fournette Reveals Why He Still Resents Jay Gruden Years After Jaguars Release
“We didn’t see eye to eye at all,” Fournette told co-host Jarvis Landry. “To me, he was somebody that was kind of hard to read… I’m just being real, he’s a fu**ing a**hole.”
Gruden was hired as Jacksonville’s offensive coordinator in January 2020 after being let go by Washington. The Jaguars brought him in to improve the offense, with Fournette expected to play a major role in those plans.
According to Fournette, Gruden was all smiles and praise to his face — telling him he was the best back on the roster, praising his pass protection, hyping up his work ethic.
Fournette bought in, saying he got back to his old ways, putting in the kind of work he did in college at LSU, but it was a completely different story behind the scenes.
“I came here, did everything right, and I think, I just feel, like, he kind of faked it with me the whole way,” he said.
Fournette wasn’t some struggling veteran on his last legs. In three seasons with Jacksonville before Gruden arrived, he carried the ball 666 times for 2,631 yards and 17 touchdowns. He also had 134 receptions for another 1,009 yards through the air.
In the playoffs, he was an absolute workhorse with 70 carries for 242 yards and four touchdowns in three games, which included three in a single Divisional Round game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2017 draft, and he had produced like one. And yet, just 13 days before the team’s Week 1 game against the Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville cut him.
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He had been the team’s number one back through all of training camp, and the move still came as a shock, even though there had been some quiet trade discussions around draft time.
Back then, the official explanation was that undrafted rookie James Robinson had blown them away in camp, and they also liked what they were seeing from Devine Ozigbo.
But the numbers didn’t make sense. Ozigbo had just nine carries and three catches his entire rookie season, and Robinson had never played a single NFL game. That’s who they went with instead.
Years later, Fournette says he found out the real story: Gruden never actually wanted him there in the first place.
“To do all that and to find out afterward, years later, that he didn’t want me there, that’s kind of… that’s a shi**y situation,” Fournette added.
When Landry asked what he meant by “faked it,” Fournette explained that it wasn’t about being released. According to Fournette, Gruden would tell him all the right things face-to-face but never truly meant them.
“People got to understand that business… It’s so many fake people,” he said. “It’s so hard to find certain coaches to be real.”
Thankfully, things obviously worked out for Fournette after his exit from the Jaguars. He went on to win a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021. Still, his latest comments suggest the Jacksonville wound did not fully heal, and he’s done keeping quiet about it.
