Former Jacksonville Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette went into the 2020 offseason with a clear desire to win. Coming off back-to-back losing seasons after his 10-6 rookie season (2017), he was frustrated, but still all-in with his team. When he showed up at the building expecting to go to work, the Director of Player Engagement, Marcus Pollard, was waiting for Fournette, and he carried the news that still stings for the former RB.

“[Pollard] like, ‘Coach wanna talk to you,’” Fournette recalled on the 4th and South podcast. “But I’m thinking, because I made us practice, I did the Black Lives Matter walk, a lot of guys was complaining, man, ‘We should go protest.’ I’m like, ‘Listen, we did the walk already. Let’s go practice, let’s go get better.” So, I’m thinking; that’s what he’s calling me [for]. I’m coming out, I’m excited. ‘Yeah, Leonard, we’re gonna let you go.’

“I’m like, ‘what the f**k?’ Part of me, I wanted to jump up and kick the f**k out of that. So, I got released. … They couldn’t find no picks for me. And my mind was ‘bulls***’. I moved on with my life. They drafted me and everything. But at the end of the day, it is a business. You have to grow.”

That offseason was especially difficult because the Jags appeared to be in the middle of a fire sale. Veteran linebacker Telvin Smith had already retired in the 2019 offseason, and after a miserable 6-10 year, head coach Doug Marrone declared he wanted to “clean up the place.” Safety Jalen Ramsey got traded to the Rams, DE Calais Campbell to the Ravens (in 2020), LB Yannick Ngakoue to the Vikings (in 2020), and DT Malik Jackson got released. These were all names Fournette listed on the podcast.

Now, Fournette’s exit seemed to have been signaled the moment Jacksonville refused to exercise the fifth-year option on his contract in May. Marrone wanted to trade him, spent months waiting for offers that never came, and ultimately waived him in August, just before the regular season.

Perhaps what stung the most for Fournette was that he made the playoffs in his rookie season – went all the way to the Conference Championship – and then spent the next two seasons grasping for wins. His postgame answers left no doubt he was frustrated, but people thought he was angry at the team. About two weeks before he got waived, he’d revealed exactly what had been driving him all along.

“Would you be angry if you’re losing week-in and week-out? That is one of my biggest problems; I do get upset when we lose, and it takes me a while to get over it,” Fournette said in an ESPN interview. “I expect, just like anybody else, if you put the work in, you want the W, but a lot of times last year it didn’t go like that.

“I guess they kind of misinterpreted that, and don’t get me wrong, I was upset from the losing, but that’s just the winner in me. That’s any guy who plays this professional level of sports.”

On his way out, Leonard Fournette penned a heartfelt message to Duval County and found a new home with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers within a week of his Jacksonville exit. The way his Jaguars stint ended still hurts, but it got a poetic ending. The Jaguars tanked with a 1-15 season, and Fournette went on to win Super Bowl LV with Tom Brady.