The 49ers suspended their team radio analyst this week for one game after comments he made on-air Monday about Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson's skin color.
Tim Ryan came on KNBR’s “Murph & Mac" morning radio show in San Francisco on Monday and was asked for his thoughts about Jackson’s 101-yard rushing performance in last Sunday’s 20-17 victory against the 49ers. That’s when the color commentator said Jackson was good 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 said on the show.
Credit: NBC Sports
Credit: NBC Sports
As a result, Ryan will not be in the booth with play-by-play announcer Greg Papa on Sunday when the 49ers travel to face the New Orleans Saints.
Papa, who joined the 49ers this season after 21 years as the radio voice for the Oakland Raiders, called Ryan's words “offensive” Thursday and said the team was right to suspend Ryan for Sunday’s game, but still defended his broadcast partner as a “quality, quality person,” the San Jose Mercury News reported.
The 49ers made the decision to suspend Ryan on Wednesday.
“We are disappointed in Tim Ryan’s comments earlier this week, and have suspended him for the upcoming game,” the team said in a statement. “We have reached out to the Baltimore Ravens organization to extend our apologies and assure them the matter is not being taken lightly.”
“We hold Tim to a high standard as a representative of our organization and he must be more thoughtful with his words," the statement added. "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."
"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." — analyst Tim Ryan
Ryan later apologized in a statement released through the team.
“I regret my choice of words in trying to describe the conditions of the game," he said. "Lamar Jackson is an MVP-caliber player and I respect him greatly. I want to sincerely apologize to him and anyone else I offended.”
San Francisco defensive back Richard Sherman defended Ryan on the matter Thursday, calling the announcer's assessment of Jackson "a great point" adding that Ryan only made a bad choice of words.
“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.
49ers teammate Dee Ford also stood up for Ryan on Thursday, saying “He walked up to me earlier, and before he even said anything, I told him ‘I’ve got your back,’ ” Ford said.
Linebacker Fred Warner told the Mercury News: “I know Tim. Tim’s a great guy. I saw the comments. Obviously his words weren’t probably the best choice of words. I don’t really have much to comment about it. It is what it is.”
So far this season Jackson has rushed for 977 yards, and he is only 63 yards from surpassing Michael Vick's 2006 NFL single-season rushing record by a quarterback.
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