ESPN’s Troy Aikman made waves on Monday night when discussing the league’s hypersensitivity to roughing the passer penalties.
“My hope is the Competition Committee looks at this in the next set of meetings and, you know, we take the dresses off,” Aikman said during the Raiders-Chiefs game. The comment oozes with casual misogyny, implying that women are weak and men are tough.
Aikman apologized for the comments during a Thursday appearance on Sportsradio 96.7 FM/1310 The Ticket.
“I mean, my comments were dumb,” Aikman said, via AwfulAnnouncing.com. “Just shouldn’t have made them, just dumb remarks on my part. . . . But the other part of . . . what came from that, what I said was that it implied that I’m not in favor of protecting the quarterbacks, which could not be further from the truth. I’m totally in favor of the protection that the quarterbacks are afforded, and all players for that matter. But there’s no question there has been over-enforcement of the protection for quarterbacks.”
Aikman grew up hearing the likes of Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert making that same remark (coincidentally, in a Monday Night Football interview in 1979) without much if any of a reaction. Still, the platform and the salary compel Aikman to be in better control of his words when speaking extemporaneously, and to choose a better way to make his point. He knows it was dumb, and he has admitted it.