The San Francisco 49ers have suspended radio host Tim Ryan after he said that Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is good at faking handoffs because of his “dark skin with a dark football.”
Both the 49ers and Tim Ryan issued statements regarding the incident.
“We hold Tim to a high standard as a representative of our organization and he must be more thoughtful with his words. Tim has expressed remorse in a public statement and has also done so with us privately,” the 49ers said in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle. “We know Tim as a man of high integrity and are confident he will grow and learn from this experience.”
Ryan backed that up with a statement of his own, expressing “regret” over his comments.
“I regret my choice of words in trying to describe the conditions of the game. Lamar Jackson is an MVP-caliber player and I respect him greatly. I want to sincerely apologize to him and anyone else I offended.”
Ryan made the comments in the aftermath of the Ravens 20-17 victory over the 49ers last Sunday. When asked what made Jackson so hard to stop, Ryan said he believed part of the reason was skin color.
“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 said. “I mean you literally could not see when he was in and out of the mesh point and if you’re a half step slow on him in terms of your vision forget about it, he’s out of the gate.”
Ryan played for the Bears from 1990 to 1993. He then called games on television for FOX before taking the reins as 49ers’ radio commentator in 2014.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.