Niners players don’t take offense to Ryan’s comments
Sherman says nobody on team took offense to 'dark skin' remark
BRADENTON, FLA. » Several 49ers players came to Tim Ryan’s defense Thursday, a day after the radio analyst was suspended for Sunday’s game after referring to Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson’s “dark skin.”
Ryan personally apologized to players at the team’s nearby hotel, and while they vouched for his upstanding character, they also acknowledged his sensitive choice of words.
Cornerback Richard Sherman said Ryan made “valid” points that weren’t personally offensive to him or the locker room. Defensive end Dee Ford added that Ryan has no racial tendencies and this controversy can be blamed on how “it’s just the era we live in, it’s messed up.”
Ryan was suspended by the 49ers two days after he appeared on KNBR and said Jackson’s “dark skin” helped disguise the football on his zone-read runs in Sunday’s 20-17 win over the 49ers.
“I regret my choice of words in trying to describe the conditions of the game,” Ryan said in a team-issued statement. “Lamar Jackson is an MVP- caliber player and I respect him greatly. I want to sincerely apologize to him and anyone else I offended.”
Ford said of Ryan: “He walked up to me and before he even said anything I told him, ‘I’ve got your back.’ I already knew the story. The words kind of got taken out of context. Of course, I think he knows now he could have used better judgment with his words. But we’ve got his back. Knew what he was trying to say.
“This era we live in, it’s just what it is. But I know him personally. I speak to him a lot. ... There’s not one type of bone — you know what bone I’m talking about — in his body, so I’ve got his back, so put that to bed really fast.”
Sherman said: “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, ‘Hey, 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 he’s swinging his arm really fast, and you’re like, ‘Does he have the ball on that play?’ And you look up and (Mark) Ingram is running it.
“It was technically a valid point, but you can always phrase things better and not say ‘ his black skin.’ ... In that situation, it’s a play where he’s talking football and he could have used better verbiage. But I don’t think anybody in this locker room is taking it offensively or anything. He’s apologized, we know his character, so hopefully this can blow over and we can move past it.”
On if it was an issue to see the ball, Sherman said, “It’s 100% an issue. The way he presented, that’s why it wasn’t that offensive, because what he was saying was a great point. Anytime that mesh points, in any zone-read scheme, the mesh point is always a tough point of contention. And if you add a dark jersey to it, it’s going to make it even harder.”
Ryan’s broadcaster partner, Greg Papa, on Thursday acknowledged that Ryan’s comments were “offensive” and the 49ers “acted accordingly” in issuing a suspension. But he went on to insist Ryan’s remarks were not made with any trace of “malice or animus” and defended Ryan as a “quality, quality person.”
Papa, who is in his first season as the 49ers’ radio play-by-play man, addressed the controversy during his morning KNBR program that he co-hosts with John Lund.
“All I will say is that the comments were offensive because they offended people,” Papa told the KNBR audience. “And they offended a great many people. In what we do for a living, word choice is critically important, and his word choice was not on point. He’s acknowledged that, and he’s going to pay a stiff penalty for it.”
Papa said that he had a “really meaningful” conversation with Ryan on Wednesday night and that he “feels badly” for him.
“He does not want to distract the football team from the matter at hand,” Papa said. “Tim is so disappointed that he’s not going to be able to work this game. But he’s more disappointed because he loves this football team and he does not want to distract their attention, our attention.”
The 49ers announced Thursday that former player Dennis Brown will serve as the radio analyst in place of Ryan at Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints.
Brown, who played defensive line for the 49ers from 1990-96, has worked on pregame and postgame shows on KNBR 680-AM.