Over the weekend, video of NFL Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Cris Carter telling NFL rookies to have a “fall guy” to blame when they get in trouble last year spread through Twitter. The NFL pulled video of Carter’s comments and Carter later apologized on Twitter.
Although Carter made his comments at last year’s NFL rookie symposium, they didn’t get any attention until former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland brought them up in a ESPN The Magazine interview. Borland, who retired after only playing one season in the NFL, recalled being stunned by the comments.
For some reason, ESPN did not name Carter as the former player who advised rookies to “get yourself a fall guy.” Of course, it didn’t take long for anyone to find video of last year’s symposium because it was right on NFL.com.
“If you all got a crew, you got to have a fall guy in the crew,” Carter told rookies, reports Profootballtalk.com. “If you all have a crew, one of those fools got to know, he’s the one going to jail. We’ll get him out.”
Warren Sapp, who has had his own recent legal issues, was at the symposium and agreed with Carter. “We’ll get him out,” Sapp said.
The NFL has since pulled the video and ESPN had to issue a statement, saying that it doesn’t agree with Carter. The NFL claimed that the league’s player engagement staff told Carter it was concerned about his comments right away and he never repeated them.
“We completely disagree with Cris's remarks and we have made that extremely clear to him,” ESPN said in a statement. “Those views were entirely his own and do not reflect our company's point of view in any way.”
Carter also apologized on Twitter:
Video of Carter’s comments was posted on YouTube. You can see his speech below, at least until the NFL gets YouTube to pull this video.
screenshot from YouTube video