Bills running back LeSean McCoy was light on his feet again Tuesday, not necessarily saying he thought Eagles coach Chip Kelly was a racist, but not necessarily backing down from a pretty clear implication of that last summer.
Via Eliot Shorr-Parks of NJ.com, McCoy appeared on 94 WIP in Philadelphia, and did nothing to dispel the insinuation of the original comment that Kelly got rid of “all the good black players.”
“Some things you may say from anger, and I was definitely angry, but I’m not going to change anything I say,” McCoy said. “I stand by everything I said before. I don’t have no problems with Chip or nothing like that. No hatred. But I stand by it. I don’t take it back.”
But while he didn’t take it back, he did insist he never called Kelly a bigot.
“I’m not going to make it a racist thing, a black or white thing. I’m not going to get into that topic. It’s old. It is what it is,” McCoy said. “People want to take it that way, they can. If you really know me, you know who I am. I embrace all people and all colors, . . . I’m just honest. If they want to take it that way, that’s fine.”
People take it that way, because that’s sure what it sounded like when it fell out of McCoy’s mouth the first time. And while it wasn’t an overt charge, the implication seemed clear, though McCoy said he was surprised with the reaction to it.
“I have seen different people say that, or similar to what I said,” McCoy said, “but when I said it, it was a way bigger thing.”
But he also said he didn’t regret anything he said previously.
“I really don’t,” he said. “One thing about myself, I will take back nothing I say. I have my own reasons to fell how I felt. The difference between me and other players is, they won’t say how they feel. I’m different. I speak how I feel. But I don’t want too relive it. I say what I said. It is what it is. I have no issue with Chip. I don’t have no hatred towards him. [But] we aren’t best friends or nothing like that.”
That’s obviously the case, especially now that McCoy has reopened the issue in the lead-up to his return to Philadelphia this weekend.