ESPN’s Booger McFarland Says Many Young African-American NFL Players Care More About Their Brand Than Becoming A Better Football Player

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The Washington Football Team waived former first round pick QB Dwayne Haskins on Monday after his poor play and off the field issues this year.

On Monday Night Countdown on ESPN, NFL analyst Booger McFarland addressed the Haskins situation and said many other African-American players care more about their brand and social media following than becoming a better football player.

“Unfortunately I’ve seen this too many times … often times young players — especially young African-American players, because they make up 70 percent of this league, they come in to this league and they ask themselves the wrong thing. They come into this league saying not ‘how can I be a better player?’, they don’t say ‘how can I be a better teammate?’, they don’t say ‘how can I be a better person?’ The come in saying ‘how can I build my brand better?’ ‘How can I build my social media following better?’ ‘How can I work out on Instagram and show everybody that I’m ready to go,’ but when I get to the game, I don’t perform,”

“Dwayne Haskins unfortunately is not the first case that I’ve seen like this. And it won’t be the last. And it bothers me because a lot of it is the young African-American player. They come in and they don’t take this as a business. It is still a game to them. It’s a billion-dollar business.”

After receiving backlash on social media McFarland defended his rant on Twitter.