San Francisco 49er running back Frank Gore was frankly not a big factor in Sunday's Pro Bowl, rushing for only four yards and making two catches for 11 yards.
But Franks frank remarks in a live television interview seems to have the NFL's g-strings in a bunch.
The NFL Network thought it would be a cute idea to have Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew do live, on-air player interviews during practices leading up to the Pro Bowl. Professional athletes with enormous amounts of disposable income to spend on partying, being interviewed on live television, in the middle of a debaucherous week in Miami. What could possibly go wrong?
Gore was approached by Jones-Drew for a live interview late Friday afternoon, during NFC squad practices. During the interview, Gore couldn't help but tease Jones-Drew about the Niners' 20-3 win over Jacksonville in Week 12, and a little wager the two of them had apparently made over that game.
"If we won, you said you were taking me to the strip club!" Gore said to Jones-Drew, and to a national NFL Network television audience, in remarks transcribed by ProFootballTalk.com. We can therefore safely assume the two had made a bet on the game's outcome with a payout involving lap dances, stripper poles, and possibly a Champagne Room.
An embarrassed Maurice Jones-Drew could only respond with "I owe you. Back to you, Rich!" and ended the interview immediately. For the record, "I owe you. Back to you, Rich" is not a denial of said accusation.
The NFL Network deleted the remark from later broadcasts, and the link for the video on their web site now just politely says, "This video is no longer available."
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There have been a few notable incidents with NFL players and strip clubs, most notoriously the 2007 Adam "Pac-Man" Jones scandal in which an exotic dancer was grabbed by the hair and punched repeatedly in the face, and eventually three club patrons were shot and critically wounded. For whatever reason, the NFL seems to not want that kind of publicity.
So Gore's joke has been stripped off the airwaves and internet, noticed only by a handful of people watching the live NFL Network broadcast early Friday evening. But Frank Gore has taught us all an important lesson about paying off strip club wagers quickly and expeditiously, so your wife and family don't find about it by watching television.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who would love to be a fly on the wall when Maurice Jones-Drew gets back home to his wife.
