Report: Jaguars' Yannick Ngakoue Has 'Parted Ways' With Agent
With no progress yet made toward a solution, it appears defensive end Yannick Ngakoue may be in the market for new representation while he is still in the midst of a public dispute with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported Monday that Ngakoue had "parted ways" with his agent. Ngakoue had been represented by player agent Ari Nissim since May 2018, so Nissim has handled the entirety of Ngakoue's negotiations with and against the Jaguars over the last two seasons. Now, Ngakoue will be looking for a new agent, Pelissero says.
It remains to be seen why Ngakoue would part ways with Nissim before the season, or how this could potentially impact Ngakoue and the Jaguars in 2020. Ngakoue stated in March that he had no interest in signing a long-term deal in Jacksonville, but the team still placed the franchise tag tender on him later that month. Thus far, Ngakoue has yet to sign the tender and report to training camp, making him the only franchise-tagged player this offseason who has not done so.
Ngakoue has been in a back-and-forth dispute with the Jaguars all offseason, but his issues stem back even further than that. Ngakoue was seeking a new deal in the 2019 offseason but the Jaguars and Ngakoue's camp failed to find much middle ground, leading to a short training camp holdout for Ngakoue. Since then, the relationship between the two sides has appeared rocky at best.
Ngakoue has requested a trade publicly multiple times this offseason, but thus far the Jaguars have refused to facilitate a deal, likely due to their large asking price for the 25-year-old former Pro Bowler.
"Like I said before, he is one player I know who is always ready. He’s a player that is always ready and always taking care of himself," Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said on July 30.
"Like I said before, I am going to reiterate it again that as a coach you’d love for that perfect harmony between management and the players as far as the business end of things, and I think when you look at it both sides have rights from a management side to a player side." I think as a coach you’re always looking for a solution that you can be part of to help bring parties together. [General Manager] Dave Caldwell would probably be able to better speak on where everything is at as far as talks or whether they have talked or not because with all of the stuff that we’ve had and the change, you’ve got to remember now, we didn’t receive a lot of this information or the deal wasn’t struck with the PA until really close to the time."
In four seasons, Ngakoue has recorded 37.5 sacks (second-most in franchise history), 14 forced fumbles and 42 tackles for loss. Ngakoue recorded eight sacks, four forced fumbles and tied a career-high in tackles for loss with 13 last season.
