It’s no secret that melanin is the source of our superpowers as black people. But if you let idiots like sports announcer Tim Ryan tell it, it also gives black NFL players like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson an unfair competitive advantage.
No, really.
And that’s exactly how he just got his ass suspended.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The 49ers have suspended Tim Ryan, their radio color analyst, over comments he made on a Bay Area sports talk radio show Monday in which he said Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who is black, is exceptional at faking handoffs because of his “dark skin color with a dark football.”
“He’s really good at that fake, Lamar Jackson, but when you consider his dark skin color with a dark football with a dark uniform, you could not see that thing,” Ryan fixed his face to say 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.”
Mind you, Ryan made these ignorant ass comments about a dude who’s on pace to shatter former Pro Bowl quarterback Michael Vick’s record for rushing yards in a season and boasts the highest speed rating for a quarterback in Madden history.
He also routinely does shit like this:
And before you say, “Oh, so he’s just fast?” Hell no, doofus.
He’s also second in the league in passing touchdowns, has the fourth-highest passer rating, and has only thrown four interceptions all year. Not bad for a guy who only a year ago was dismissed as a “project” who would be better serving as a wide receiver.
So to clarify, his dominance has absolutely nothing to do with pulling melanin magic tricks with the ball and everything to do with putting in the work on his game so that he can embarrass defensive coordinators for a living.
Ryan’s remarks are nothing more than the latest manifestation of that tired-ass good old boy mentality that’s loomed over black quarterbacks for decades. Of which, he can happily GTFOHWTBS.
“We hold Tim to a high standard as a representative of our organization and he must be more thoughtful with his words,” 49ers officials told the Chronicle. “We know Tim as a man of high integrity and are confident he will grow and learn from this experience.”
As for Ryan, he released the following statement:
“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.”
Whatever.
Meanwhile, Jackson has more important things to worry about—like being well on his way to being named the 2019 NFL MVP.