Apparently, Cris Carter went a little too far in trying to help a troubled wide receiver, and it wasn’t the first time.
Carter, who has been sober since 1990 while recovering from alcohol and cocaine addictions and now works for ESPN, told Cleveland.com the Browns should cut troubled receiver Josh Gordon and allow him to reach “rock bottom.” Gordon, the talented but troubled Browns wide receiver who was arrested over the weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, for driving while intoxicated, is facing a year-long suspension for violating the NFL’s drug policy.
“He loves football more than anything, so I would take that away,” Carter said. “When I say they should cut him, I say that because I believe that will be the catalyst to help. When you’re falling in life, at some point you have to make a bottom floor and say, ‘This is it for me. I’m going to establish my house on this right here. And I’m going to build up.'”
Carter’s statement touched a nerve with the NFL Network’s Michael Irvin — a former cocaine user — who went on Dan Le Batard’s radio show on Tuesday and criticized Carter.
“Even though I love Cris to death … I don’t know what year it was, we were in the Pro Bowl, [Cris] said to my wife — to my wife — ‘You know, Mike would never, he would never come out of his problem until you leave him,'” Irvin said, his voice rising. “‘Til you leave him!’ For years I’ve held that. I’ve never shared that with anybody. I was so hurt when Cris … because he was out of line [bleep] then and he’s out of line now.”