Cris Carter told NFL rookies to find a ‘fall guy’ in case of trouble [Video]

Cris Carter did not follow his own advice. And that’s a good thing.

On Sunday the Hall of Fame wide receiver owned up to a mistake he made last year, when he advised NFL rookies to “have a fall guy” in case they get into any kind of trouble.

Carter made the comment during the 2014 NFC rookie symposium. A video of the event recently began attracting notice after now-retired San Francisco linebacker Chris Borland told ESPN the Magazine about the incident without mentioning Carter by name.

“Seeing that video has made me realize how wrong I was,” Carter tweeted Sunday night. “I was brought there to educate young people and instead I gave them very bad advice. Every person should take responsibility for his own actions. I’m sorry and I truly regret what I said that day.”

In the video, which has been removed from the NFL’s website, Carter tells the young players, “Just in case y’all not gonna decide to do the right thing, if y’all got a crew, you got to have a fall guy in the crew.”

There’s a smattering of laughter, including from Warren Sapp, who was also onstage. But Carter appears to be dead serious and continues to drive home his point for about two minutes.

“Y’all not gonna all do the right stuff now, all right?” Carter said. “So I gotta teach y’all how to get around this stuff too. If you gonna have a crew, one of them fools got to know he’s going to jail. We’ll get him out.”

The NFL and ESPN, Carter’s current employer, issued statements prior to Carter’s apology.

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

ESPN said: “We completely disagree with Cris’s remarks and we have made that extremely clear to him. Those views were entirely his own and do not reflect our company’s point of view in any way.”

ALSO:

USC is media’s default choice to win Pac-12, but are Trojans good enough?

Clayton Kershaw says Dodgers need to panic after fifth straight loss

UCLA looks dynamic on defense while offense suffers growing pains