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San Francisco 49ers suspend announcer after reference to quarterback’s ‘dark skin’

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The San Francisco 49ers on Wednesday announced that they have suspended analyst Tim Ryan for a game after he said Monday that Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s “dark skin” helped him carry out fakes, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

{mosads}”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, a former player for the Chicago Bears, said Monday in an interview with the 49ers’ flagship radio station KNBR. “I mean you literally could not see when he was in and out of the mesh point.”

Ryan issued an apology for the remarks Wednesday, according to the newspaper.

 

“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,” Ryan, who joined the 49ers in 2014 as a commentator, said.

“We hold Tim to a high standard as a representative of our organization and he must be more thoughtful with his words,” the 49ers said in a statement of their own, saying Ryan will not broadcast the team’s Sunday game in New Orleans.

“Tim has expressed remorse in a public statement and has also done so with us privately. We know Tim as a man of high integrity and are confident he will grow and learn from this experience,” the 49ers added.

Jackson, who most consider the front-runner for the league’s most valuable player award this season, has not commented on Ryan’s remarks.

Joe Concha contributed.

Tags NFL San Francisco 49ers Sports and Politics Tim Ryan

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