NFL great Booger McFarland issued a head-turning diatribe in response to the Washington Football Team's stunning release of 2019 first-round draft pick Dwayne Haskins over apparent maturity concerns.
McFarland, now an ESPN studio analyst after a stint in the Monday Night Football booth, suggested too many of the NFL's predominantly young Black players are overly concerned with their "brands," often at expense of their long-term career prospects.
"Unfortunately I've seen this too many times," McFarland told Monday Night Countdown co-hosts Randy Moss, Suzy Kolber and Adam Schefter. "I played in the NFL almost a decade. Often times young players -- especially young African-American players, because they make up 70 percent of the league -- they come into this league and they ask themselves the wrong thing. They come into the league saying not, 'How can I be a better player?' They don't say, 'How can I be a better teammate?' They don't say, 'How can I be a better person? How can I get my organization over the hump?'
"Here's what they come in saying. They come in saying, 'How can I build my brand better? How can i build my social media following better?' How can I work out on Instagram and show everybody that I'm ready to go, but when I get to the game I don't perform?'"
On Tuesday McFarland posted a minor clarification to his controversial remarks, saying he was speaking to all players, but stood by the thrust of his argument.
"Dwayne Haskins unfortunately isn't the first case I've seen like this, and it won't be the last," McFarland said prior to the Bills-Patriots game in Foxborough, MA. "And it bothers me because a lot of it is the young African-American player. They come in, and they don't take this as a business. It is still a game to them."
"They look at it as football," Moss responded.
McFarland then conjured the specter of former Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell's infamous flameout in the NFL.
"This ain't football man!" McFarland replied. "This is a billion-dollar business! It's billions of dollars. They pay us a lot of money to talk about the game, so imagine what they pay these guys to play the game. They play a child's game and get paid a king's ransom. And it bothers me, because I saw a quarterback do it. I saw JaMarcus Russell do it. The No. 1 pick in the draft, they gave him $40 million, and he threw it down the damn drain because he didn't take it seriously. And it bothers me, because there ain't a lot of jobs like this around."
The rant turned heads in the sports media ecosystem, with negative responses on social media and in headlines.
Among those who were critical of McFarland was Annie Apple, mother of former Giants and Saints cornerback Eli Apple.
A post on the sports blog For The Win said McFarland's take was "harmful" and "nonsensical." A Deadspin article described the former Buccaneers and Colts star as "loud and wrong."
Haskins was cut by Washington on Monday following a series of troubling incidents, including multiple violations of the team's coronavirus protocols.
McFarland was demoted from the MNF booth amid a shuffle last offseason.
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