NFL Hall of Famer Cris Carter is under fire over a speech he and fellow Hall of Famer Warren Sapp gave at the NFL Rookie Symposium in 2014.
Video of Carter's speech surfaced after a recent ESPN the Magazine profile on ex-49ers linebacker Chris Borland.
In the interview, Borland mentioned an unnamed former player who told rookies to get "a fall guy" if they decided to run afoul of the law.
It didn't take long before someone found video posted online at NFL.com of Carter and Sapp giving a speech to rookies in 2014 where Carter passed along the message to the rookies.
"Just in case y'all not going to decide to do the right thing, if y'all got a crew, you got to have a 'fall guy' in the crew," Carter said.
The video has since been deleted from the NFL's website, although the clip of Carter doling out that specific piece of advice still exists on the Internet.
Carter's message also included the lesson on how "to get around" getting in trouble.
"I let my own boys know … y’all want to keep rolling like this," Carter says in the video. "Then I need to know who’s going to be the fall guy, who’s going to be driving. Y’all not going to do all the right stuff now. I got to teach y’all how to get around all this stuff."
It might be a realistic issue young men will face in the NFL, but the league -- clearly -- didn't like the message it provided. The NFL deleted the video and said in a statement that it was "an unfortunate and inappropriate comment."
“This was an unfortunate and inappropriate comment made by Cris Carter during the 2014 NFC rookie symposium," the NFL said. "The comment was not representative of the message of the symposium or any other league program. The league’s player engagement staff immediately expressed concern about the comment to Cris. The comment was not repeated in the 2014 AFC session or this year’s symposium."
Next up: determining whether or not Carter will continue to speak to the rookies. And then whether or not someone at ESPN will apologize for Carter's comments (and to Carter for bringing his comments to light).
