Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick caught the full wrath of Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell Sunday, absorbing a stiff-arm so profound he actually bounced back to his feet.
But then he received the full brunt of the internet.
Kirkpatrick tried to own it, even tweeting out his own GIF of the play on which he was so deeply owned, writing “Got to be real with self #damnkirk #itsfootball #istillwaslocked”
Got to be real with self #damnkirk #itsfootball #istillwaslocked https://t.co/O6Jdkmf0M1
— Dre Kirkpatrick (@DreKirkSWAG) October 23, 2017
“It’s football!” Kirkpatrick said later, via Jim Owczarski of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Man, c’mon. It’s football. I go out there – if you ask my coach how I played I guarantee you he’ll say I did pretty good, you know what I’m saying? It’s football, man. S-- happen. . . .
“Man, hey, it happened man. I embraced it, you know? I gotta make that tackle, but I gotta embrace it, look at what happened, face the facts. This is what happened. If I take it to heart, people gonna see you in the community, this and that, if you take it to heart it brings you distraction because the next week, guess what you gotta be worried about? ‘I don’t want this play to happen again.’
“It’s football. I give my heart. I give my all. If that happened, it happened.”
Of course, if he ever wants it to truly go away, all he has to do is make the same kind of play to someone else.
