Ever since Hall of Fame cornerback Ronnie Lott gave the New Orleans Saints a pregame pep talk before their Monday nighter with the San Francisco 49ers, he's been about as popular in Northern California as PG&E getting a government bailout to pay their executive bonuses.
Ronnie Lott has noticed that pep talk didn't make him any new friends in the region where he currently lives, runs a private equity firm, and co-owns a Toyota dealership. So the ten-time Pro Bowler took to the airwaves of KHTK to try and explain what some fans see as an act of treason.
"I had a friend call me, he says 'What were you thinking?'," Lott said in an interview available online. "'I heard you went and talked to the team, you talked to the other team.' I was like, 'Well, yeah, I did'."
"Was it the right thing to do?," Lott wondered aloud rhetorically. "My heart says yes, it's the right thing to do, because I think that I have a responsibility to men and to trying to help people. Is it the wrong thing to do because people are upset? Yeah, it's the wrong thing to do because people have an allegiance."
"I was rooting my butt of for the 49ers," Lott assured us. "but I’m not going to turn my back on a human being because he has a Saints uniform on, or he's got a Giants uniform on."
I suppose that makes sense on a philosophical level. But if the human being has Cowboys uniform on, all bets should be considered off.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who thinks Ronnie Lott is at least still more popular than the "Free Johannes Mehserle" guys at the Giants game.
