Dolphins cornerback Don Jones says he has learned a lot in the last couple months, after his reaction to Michael Sam becoming the NFL’s first openly gay player got him suspended from the team.
When TV cameras captured Sam kissing his boyfriend, Jones reacted by calling it “horrible.” The Dolphins’ response was to send Jones home from offseason work and say he couldn’t return until he completed sensitivity training. Now Jones says he realizes his choice of words was poor.
“I didn’t intend [any] harm,” Jones told the Miami Herald. “I just made a bad mistake. I had to learn from it.”
Jones said that he has no animosity toward gays, despite what his tweet suggested.
“I don’t have [a] problem with gay [people],” Jones said. “Shoot, I do have a bunch of family members that are gay. My brother, my cousins. I never really had a problem.”
On some teams, Jones’s tweet probably would have resulted in nothing more than a stern talking-to, but the Dolphins are particularly sensitive about the need for players to treat each other with respect after the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin fiasco last year. Jones put something stupid on Twitter, but he deserves credit for dealing with it forthrightly and moving on.