Le'Veon Bell came to the defense of Sam Darnold after the Jets quarterback was heard on "Monday Night Football" saying he was "seeing ghosts."
The New York running back said the NFL "screwed Sammy over" and that airing a sideline comment like this had never happened to another quarterback.
"The NFL screwed Sammy over ... there’s not one player in the NFL who’s cool with having every sideline convo broadcasted to millions...there’s a reason we’ve never heard other QB’s frustrated on the sideline like that before ... that’s crazy, @NFL did Sam dirty as hell," Bell tweeted Tuesday.
The NFL screwed Sammy over...there’s not one player in the NFL who’s cool with having every sideline convo broadcasted to millions...there’s a reason we’ve never heard other QB’s frustrated on the sideline like that before...that’s crazy, @NFL did Sam dirty as hell https://t.co/2XmYXNTNoL
— Le'Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) October 22, 2019
During the ESPN broadcast of Monday's 33-0 loss against the Patriots, Darnold was seen sitting on the bench and commenting, "I'm seeing ghosts," after a particularly rough game that saw him commit five turnovers.
Sam Darnold is mic’d up and he came to the sidelines and said, “I’m seeing ghosts.”
— Dan Roche (@RochieWBZ) October 22, 2019
(Via @ESPN ) pic.twitter.com/9MoM6Rkmo5
According to the New York Daily News , the NFL needs to have an on-site NFL Films representative to clear any comments aired. Not only did the representative clear this particular comment from Darnold, but also ESPN — which has the right not to use content cleared — decided to air it on the "MNF" broadcast.
Normally comments aired by NFL Films from mic'd up players are rather benign, which is mostly for the trust between any NFL team and the NFL. With the Jets, who didn't sign off on the comment to be used, that trust appears to have been broken.
“We’ll be looking into that pretty hard,” Jets coach Adam Gase said Tuesday. “That was one of those things that was really disappointing to hear about after the game. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that where somebody that was mic’d up was basically … a comment like that was allowed to be aired. It bothers me. It bothers the organization. Obviously, we’re going to be looking hard into our cooperation going forward.”
NFL coaches and quarterbacks have to be mic'd up for one game a season, per NFL Films' deal with teams. Originally, Darnold was going to be mic'd up for Week 2's game against the Browns, but he was ruled out with mono.
“It’s not something’s that new,” Gase said. “Usually when it’s a Monday night game, somebody’s usually mic’d up. I know once a year I have to do the same thing. It’s kind of part of the deal. Obviously, you’re never anticipating something like that happening. The fact that it did just gives us pause to really cooperate anymore. Because I don’t know how we can allow our franchise quarterback to be put out there like that.”