Buccaneers wide receiver Louis Murphy isn’t heard from on the field very much. He hasn’t caught more than 25 passes in a season since he was with the Raiders in 2010.
The journeyman receiver has gained some notoriety in defending quarterback Jameis Winston, however, saying that criticism of Winston is racially driven.
The ESPN website The Undefeated published a profile of Winston on Tuesday titled “The Continued Maturation of Jameis Winston.” Even though Murphy’s input was cut from the piece, it was part of a deleted tweet by Alex Kennedy, the author of the piece, and has been published by Deadspin.
Murphy basically says that the media is making Winston out to be a “bad person” while portraying Johnny Manziel as this “freaking great kid.”
If there is a media outlet that is painting a picture of Manziel as this “great kid,” it would behoove Murphy to make us all aware of it. Manziel’s transgressions have been duly reported.
Meanwhile, the rape allegations against Winston during his college days seem to have been swept under the rug. Winston wasn’t charged, but there were several missteps in the investigation and we’ll never really know what happened.
Murphy said that he’s heard racial insults directed at Winston, and it’s sad that the quarterback has to hear that. When it comes to media coverage of Winston, however, the focus since he entered the NFL has been on his bright future as a quarterback. And judging from media coverage Winston has behaved better than Manziel since he was drafted in 2015.
This ESPN profile is a puff piece that further distances Winston from his checkered past, and it’s interesting that the most vehement defense of Winston was left out.
Maybe if Murphy had just said “that’s my quarterback,” it would have made it in.
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