Atlanta Falcons OT Kaleb McGary Issues Apology for Insensitive Tweet About the George Floyd Protests

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4 years ago

Countless celebrities and athletes have chimed in on social media to address the George Floyd murder and ensuing protests which have resulted in rioting, looting, and burning of buildings. In a sensitive time like this one, it is always important to think before you press send when you are in the public eye, even if it’s on the periphery. Atlanta Falcons OT and 2019 first-round draft pick Kaleb McGary attempted to get the message across on Twitter that looting and burning buildings isn’t helping the cause of George Floyd, but took it a bit too far:

#Falcons 2019 first round pick, OT Kaleb McGary, tweet-delete that the people protesting George Floyd's death are no better than the cop that killed him. pic.twitter.com/J2B3cllIkn

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) May 29, 2020

In the now-deleted tweet, McGary equates the looting and burning of buildings to that of the officers who took part in the killing of George Floyd. McGary certainly isn’t wrong that looting and burning buildings takes away from the greater cause that the protests were meant to support. However, comparing those actions to ex-police officer Derek Chauvin’s who kneeled on the throat of George Floyd for close to nine minutes until he died as well as the other officers who did nothing while witnessing it, is a bad look.

After some backlash, McGary apologized:

not my intent. I recognize I shouldn’t have said what I said and I am learning from this.

— Kaleb McGary (@KalebMcgary) May 29, 2020

McGary was the 31st overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft out of the University of Washington. He started all 16 games at right tackle for the Falcons as a rookie in 2019.

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