Cris Carter is an NFL Hall of Famer, so it would make sense that he was brought in to give his advice to the rookies ahead of their debut season in the league.
As a pundit and media figure, as well as a player, he's seen plenty of what goes on behind the scenes as well as on the field, but he gave some spectacularly poor advice to those in attendance during his speech last year.
Taking to the stage with fellow Hall of Famer Warren Sapp, Carter advised players that they should get "a fall guy" in their crew, so that they can be the one to go to jail when something goes wrong.
Wearing his Hall of Fame jacket, Carter told them "Y’all not gonna all do the right stuff. I gotta teach yall how to get around all this stuff too. If you gonna have a crew, one of them fools got to know he going to jail".
The video had been available on the NFL website until late last night, when it was deleted, and a statement was issued as a result, saying that Carter's comments were "unfortunate and inappropriate".
The #NFL released a statement on the Cris Carter "fall guy" comments: pic.twitter.com/ILBjuNv8hk
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) August 23, 2015
As for Carter himself, he took to Twitter to apologise for his remarks, and that he shouldn't have said what he did.
Seeing that video has made me realize how wrong I was. I was brought there to educate young people and instead I gave them very...
— Cris Carter (@criscarter80) August 24, 2015
bad advice. Every person should take responsibility for his own actions. I’m sorry and I truly regret what I said that day.”
— Cris Carter (@criscarter80) August 24, 2015
The video came to light after San Fracnisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland revealed in an interview with ESPN that a Hall of Famer had told him to get a fall guy at the rookie symposium, but the fact that the NFL had the video online for so long and no issue was raised on it until this point does not look good for the organisation.
ESPN, who employ Carter as an analyst and published the original interview with Borland, also issued a statement distancing themselves from his remarks, stating that "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".
