San Francisco 49ers radio announcer Tim Ryan shocked folks this week after he got himself suspended over comments he made Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. Ryan stated the 49ers defense struggled against the Ravens in part due to Jackson’s skin color making it more difficult to read fake handoffs.
“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 on air. “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.”
Richard Sherman, one of San Francisco’s most outspoken stars, has now weighed in.
The 49ers star cornerback actually came to the defense of Ryan on his comments about Lamar Jackson.
“I know Tim personally and I listened to the dialogue and saw it written, and honestly I wasn’t as outraged as everybody else,” Sherman said. “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.”
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The 49ers said they have reached out to Baltimore Ravens officials to “extend our apologies and assure them the matter is not being taken lightly.”
Jackson only threw for 105 yards, but had 101 rushing yards and a rushing TD en route to a 20-17 win.
