Former Eagles defensive end Chris Long called DeSean Jackson’s social media posts citing fake Hitler quotes a “f—ing disaster” during his most recent Green Light podcast.
Long, who starred on the 2017 Eagles Super Bowl team, retired last May after an 11-year career. He and Jackson were never teammates.
But Long said he’s met Jackson and has always liked him but condemned Jackson’s posts and also said he was disappointed more people haven’t denounced Jackson over the last several days.
Long's popular weekly podcast is ranked No. 3 in the country among NFL podcasts according to Apple Podcasts.
Some excerpts from Long’s five-minute response in response to a question from a listener named In the Sky:
His initial reaction: “Quoting Hitler is really bad business but quoting fake Hitler quotes is like a cherry on top. I don’t know if it would be worse if you quoted a real one or the fake one.”
On people defending DeSean: “Maybe I don’t get it. I saw a ton of people defending him on Twitter somehow, which is another reason why Twitter sucks. … The guy made a mistake. It’s a bad mistake. … He talked bad about Jewish people and somehow managed to use a fake Hitler quote doing it and that is a f---ing disaster.”
NFL
On disappointment with the reaction he’s seen: “I can’t speak for the many people in the media or on Twitter who kind of bite their tongue on this thing, because when it comes to anit-semitism it’s not in vogue to denounce it or they have some political inclination that complicates denouncing it, but I think it’s f---ed up, unequivocally. … It doesn’t seem like it’s in vogue to call out anti-semitism. We’re not so keen on that. I don’t know what it is, but it seems like we’re not allowed to say, ‘Hey that’s not good.’ It’s not good. It’s wrong and I’m sure I have Jewish listeners and I haven’t seen nearly enough people saying, ‘Yeah, man, this was a mis-step.’”
On what he hopes happens next: ”We want people to change. It doesn’t look like he’s going to get cut, and that’s fine, I’m not saying he should, but he’s a role model and we gave it to Drew Brees pretty hard for being at the very best extremely tone deaf, and certainly anti-semitism is not the main event in this country, but we can walk and chew gum here. … Hopefully DeSean learns from it from people outside the building. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but not a lot of Jewish guys playing at the NFL level. I’m sure he has a lot of Jewish fans who are disappointed. I think he’s better than that and I hope he’s learned from it.”
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