San Francisco cornerback Richard Sherman has come to the defense of a suspended 49ers radio announcer, calling his recent comments about Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, “not that offensive.”
On Monday, Tim Ryan, a former Chicago Bear and 49ers radio announcer since 2014, said in a radio interview that one of the things that made Jackson so hard to stop, was his 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.”
The 49ers suspended Ryan for these comments, saying that he needed to be “more thoughtful with his words.”
On Thursday, Richard Sherman defended Ryan, saying his observation about Jackson’s skin color and dark uniform, were on point.
“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, (the Ravens are) wearing dark colors, and he has a brown arm, honestly, sometimes we were having trouble seeing it on film.”
Sherman went on to say that the truth behind Ryan’s observation, made it “not that offensive.”
“It 100 percent is an issue,” Sherman said of the struggles teams have trying to pick up the ball when Jackson is carrying it. “That’s why (what Ryan said about Jackson’s dark skin color) wasn’t that offensive, because what he was saying was a great point. He could have used better words, but it was made bigger than it really was.”
Ryan’s suspension is for only one game.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn