Richard Sherman says he “wasn’t as outraged” by 49ers announcer’s comments

The 49ers players seem ready to move on.

San Francisco 49ers players are coming to the defense of team radio announcer Tim Ryan after his comments about Ravens’ quarterback Lamar Jackson.

A few days after the 49ers loss to the Ravens, Ryan spoke on KNBR radio in San Francisco about the trouble the 49ers had defending Jackson. He said that the Ravens’ quarterback had an advantage on play-fakes because of his “dark skin with a dark football.”

Ryan later issued an apology for his comments, saying he regretted his choice of words on Jackson and called him an MVP candidate. Some were still outraged, but for 49ers players that was good enough.

Richard Sherman was one of the players who came to Ryan’s defense, saying he “wasn’t as outraged as everybody else.”

More from Sherman here:

“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, we were having trouble seeing it on film.”

He wasn’t the only one to come to Ryan’s defense. Defensive end Dee Ford said he told Ryan “I’ve got your back” when he saw him.

“The words kind of got taken out of context…Of course, I think he knows now he could’ve used better judgement with his words, but we’ve got his back. I knew what he was trying to say. This era we live in, man, it’s just what it is.”ย 

The 49ers players are very clearly defending Ryan here and are trying to put the situation behind them. They believe he made a mistake, but it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal to them.

In the meantime, Ryan has been suspended by the team for one game. He’s set to return to the booth when the 49ers play the Falcons on the 15th.