https://twitter.com/SheHatesJacoby/status/912860430455930885
Ray Lewis wants to get something straight about his kneeling during the national anthem Sunday. Namely that he didn’t take a knee during the national anthem. Plus, he’s also got a bone to pick with former teammate Shannon Sharpe.
“Actually, two knees,” he says on “Inside The NFL” Tuesday, Sept. 26. “I absolutely did not take a knee … You hear Shannon Sharpe going out there talking about I dropped on a knee and … I sat in the chair next to him and I said I would never do this and I still didn’t do it.
“I dropped on two knees, both knees, so I can simply honor God in the midst of chaos,” he added.
Previously, Lewis’ pal Shannon Sharpe said he was “very disappointed” in the “Inside The NFL” host. Well, according to Lewis, a real friend wouldn’t have aired such statements for public consumption.
“First of all,” Lewis says. “I’m 42 years old with six kids. I’m a grown man. So to be disappointed in me, it really, like, sparked me and now all of these people are going off his sound bites of how he’s so shocked that I dropped on a knee to protest. Really? You got my phone number, brother. A friend? A friend? A friend picks up the cell phone and says ‘What was your intention?'”
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“I took two knees because I have a first amendment right just like everybody else,” he said on radio program “The Scott Garceau Show with Jeremy Conn” that same day. “And when I came out of that locker room, I had a choice to make. … And I say, ‘I’m not in the protesting business,’ … but if these young boys doing what they doing, then I got to meet them where they are. So I said, ‘You guys and protest, I’ma pray.'”
Garceau also asked the famed former Baltimore Ravens linebacker about his thoughts on a petition to remove his statue from the team’s M&T Bank Stadium. He said he wouldn’t be bothered unless he “blatantly did something to gain awareness for myself.”
Maybe after Lewis’ clarification, Eric Moniodis, the fan who took issue with Lewis kneeling — er, praying — will decide not to deliver the petition to Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti. The document only needs 2,105 more signatures to make it’s 35,000 goal.
