Ryan Clark came out firing in his searing criticism of the Steelers Sunday following their humiliating blowout loss to the Bills. The ESPN analyst lambasted his former team, saying they "gave up" and "weren't playing anymore."
But now that Clark is encountering some blowback from the Steelers locker room, he's distancing himself from his opinion, and throwing a colleague under the bus in the process.
That's a weak look.
On Monday, ESPN Steelers reporter Brooke Pryor asked Diontae Johnson about Clark's harsh remarks. "A former Steeler yesterday tweeted that he thinks this team kind of quit. What do you say to that?," she said.
Johnson took the bait and fired back. "I'm not worried about RC, man. He played here he knows how the Steelers play," he said. "He wanna come play he can come help us win if he got so much to say."
Ever since joining ESPN in 2015, the Super Bowl champion hasn't been afraid to rip his former team, which makes him an entertaining analyst. But another important part of the job is owning one's words.
Clark failed to do that here. When he was asked about Johnson's reaction on ESPN, he denied he called out the Steelers for quitting.
"Brooke said I said they quit. I didn't say they quit," said Clark.
As proof, Clark referenced a tweet he posted Sunday, in which he offered more tempered criticism of the Steelers. "Mike Tomlin is my favorite football coach," he wrote. "With that be said no matter what the roster looks like your team has to be prepared, be in proper positions to succeed, and dang fight! The Steelers did not fight today, and that goes back to the head coach. He gotta get'em right."
While Clark is largely playing semantics, there is a slight difference between saying a team "gave up" and asserting they "did not fight today." The first take implies the team isn't being competitive, whereas the second one comes across as more ephemeral. The Steelers didn't fight "today," but there's always tomorrow.
Plus, Clark preceded his criticism on Twitter with some praise of his former coach, Mike Tomlin. It was a more congenial way to express his views.
To back up Clark, ESPN showed a graphic of his aforementioned tweet, and his co-host, Laura Rutledge, offered a verbal defense after playing a clip of Johnson's question-and-answer. "I will say, you did not say that, exactly. We did show the tweet," she said.
ESPN may have showed the tweet, but it didn't show the clip of Clark saying the Steelers gave up. The WorldWide Leader obfuscated the truth, even though it promoted Clark's rant on the "Get Up!" Twitter account Monday morning.
On Tuesday night, Clark took to Twitter and once again denied he said what he said.
As a 12-year NFL veteran and seven-year analyst, Clark should know how this works. He said on ESPN he wishes that players weren't asked about analysts' opinions, but that's naive. As Pryor explained, she wonders whether coaches and players take more stock in criticism from a former player. That's why she posed the question to Johnson.
Clark works for ESPN, the biggest media company in sports — by far. Everything he says will and could be used against him.
Once his words are out there, he can't take them back, as hard as he may try.
