Getty Image
Lamar Jackson is having an absolutely ridiculous year that is even more ridiculous when you consider this is only his second season in the NFL and is currently the favorite to take home MVP honors (although he’s more concerned with winning the Super Bowl) as his Ravens steadily march toward the playoffs.
Jackson is a nightmare for defenders thanks to his ability to throw absolute darts in addition to using his legs unlike any quarterback we’ve seen in a while (he recently surpassed Michael Vick as the fastest QB in Madden history).
However, if 49ers broadcaster Tim Ryan is to be believed, there’s one other asset that makes him so dangerous: his dark skin.
Earlier this week, Ryan appeared on a radio show to discuss last Sunday’s matchup between Baltimore and San Francisco and made an ever-so-slightly controversial comment that resulted in him being suspended.
Snippet of Tim Ryan’s comments RE: Lamar Jackson’s “dark skin with a dark football with a dark uniform… you could not see that thing” via KNBR. He has since been suspended by the team pic.twitter.com/vpRI3veoXK
— 49ersHive (@49ersHive) December 5, 2019
If you can’t watch the clip, here’s the quote that managed to rustle plenty of jimmies:
He’s really good at that fake, Lamar Jackson, but when you consider his dark skin with a dark football with a dark uniform, you could not see that thing.
Ryan quickly apologized for his questionable take but there’s one person who doesn’t think it’s as big of a deal as many people are making it out to be: Richard Sherman, who defended the broadcaster when asked about the situation on Thursday.
#49ers Richard Sherman said radio analyst Tim Ryan apologized to individuals at team hotel for his “dark skin” comment about Lamar Jackson, said Ryan made “valid” points but could have chosen better words pic.twitter.com/O8dWOztQiC
— Cam Inman (@CamInman) December 5, 2019
Here’s what he had to say:
“I know Tim personally and I listened to the dialogue and saw it written, and honestly I wasn’t as outraged as everybody else. I understand how it can be taken under a certain context and be offensive to some, but if you’re saying, this is a brown ball, they’re wearing dark colors, and he has a brown arm, honestly, sometimes we were having trouble seeing it on film.
He’s making a play fake and sometimes he’s swinging his arm real fast and you’re like, Does he have the ball? And you look up and [Mark] Ingram is running it. So it was technically a valid point, but you can always phrase things better.”
Everyone makes mistakes, and while Ryan definitely could have phrased things better than he did, I’m of the opinion that he deserves to be uncanceled sooner rather than later.
Here’s to hoping reason will prevail.