We noted this afternoon that Pro Football Hall of Famer Cris Carter had told players at the 2014 Rookie Symposium that they should have a “fall guy” in their crew, ready to take the blame if they faced legal trouble. And we noted that video of Carter’s comments was posted on NFL.com.
Shortly after we published our item, NFL.com removed the video. The link now goes to the most recent video posted on NFL.com, a news item from today’s Packers-Steelers preseason game.
It’s easy to understand why the NFL would pull the video: Carter and Warren Sapp were openly encouraging rookies to be ready to have someone help them break the law. That’s not exactly the kind of image the NFL wants to project.
What’s harder to understand is why the NFL would post the video in the first place. It should have been obvious to anyone that such comments are not appropriate. But the video had been online at NFL.com for more than a year before Carter’s comments were mentioned in an ESPN article (an article that withheld the name of Carter, an ESPN employee).
Once the comments began to generate attention, the NFL decided to pull the video. Apparently the NFL doesn’t realize that you can never completely delete anything from the Internet. Videos of Carter’s comments have already been uploaded elsewhere and will be around forever, whether the NFL likes it or not.