CRIS CARTER SHOULD QUIT TALKING ABOUT GUNS

A couple of Sundays ago, ESPN’s Cris Carter made an awkward on-air attempt at humor in reference to the whole Plaxico Burress/bullet-in-the-leg thing. We didn’t mention it at the time. For starters, it really wasn’t funny. And then there’s his generalized blogger hatred, which we really didn’t want to feed. (Especially if he has a license to carry a gun. Or if he carries one without a license.) But, on Monday, Robert Littal of BlackSportsOnline pointed out to us that Carter made another gun reference, during a Monday appearance on ESPN Radio’s Mike And Mike In The Morning. (One of our 2008 New Year’s Resolutions was to no longer call the show “Man-Girl And Meatball In The Morning,” and we’ve managed to make it through the entire . . . oh, crap!) Said Carter, of Terrell Owens: “I’d take one bullet and put it right in him. BAM!” And to the extent that anyone wants to give Carter the “well, it was just a slip of the tongue” excuse, it wasn’t. It’s apparently his material. As pointed out by The Big Lead, Carter made the same statement later that day, on the Tirico And Van Pelt Show. Said Carter: “If I got a gun I got one bullet in it, I shoot T.O. right now. Right on the spot. I have a press conference my first day they hire me, I have him come, I put a bullet right there sitting in him.” (We think that’s what he said; it’s hard to tell because Michele Tafoya’s reaction to Carter’s riff prompted an old lady in the studio to say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”) Look, Carter surely isn’t serious about killing Terrell Owens. But there are certain analogies and images that probably should be avoided on national platforms like, you know, ESPN Radio. We realize that Carter is just trying to make his mark. But it just seems like he’s trying too hard. And he just isn’t as likeable as (dare we say) Michael Irvin or Emmitt Smith. So with no Super Bowl rings to flash and a far lower level of natural charisma, Carter’s margin of error is narrower. In other words, ESPN will tolerate fewer blunders from Carter than it will from guys like Irvin and Emmitt, and Cris would be wise to begin exercising better judgment. For starters, he should never mention guns or bullets on the air, ever again.