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NFL calls Cris Carter comments “unfortunate and inappropriate”

Hall of Fame Football

Cris Carter, right, receives his symbolic gold jacket from his presenter and son Duron Carter, left, during the Enshrinees’ Gold Jacket Dinner at the Canton Memorial Civic Center Friday, Aug. 2, 2013 in Canton, OH. Carter will be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame Saturday. (AP Photo/The Repository, Scott Heckel)

AP

The NFL is distancing itself from comments made by Hall of Famer Cris Carter at the 2014 Rookie Symposium.

Carter said when addressing NFC rookies at the 2014 Symposium that they should have a “fall guy” ready to take the blame if they get into legal trouble. Although the NFL didn’t seem to have a problem with those comments at the time, a league spokesman told PFT in a statement today that the league does not think the comments were acceptable.

“This was an unfortunate and inappropriate comment made by Cris Carter during the 2014 NFC rookie symposium,” the NFL’s statement 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.”

Left unanswered is why the NFL posted the comments online. If the league’s player engagement staff told Carter that the comments weren’t appropriate, why did someone at NFL.com think it was acceptable to post video of Carter’s comments?

We may never know the answer to that question, but NFL.com would be wise to be more careful in the future.