Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said he was sorry for calling Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel "a midget" as the two teams prepared to square off in a pivotal AFC North battle on Sunday.
Lewis made headlines on Monday for the comment during a WLW-AM interview in Cincinnati when news broke that Manziel, the former Heisman Trophy winner out of Texas A&M and a highly-touted rookie, would replace Brian Hoyer as the Browns starting quarterback for its game against the Bengals.
Lewis dismissed the quarterback switch and added the insult to Manziel.
"You'll get a little bit more movement if Manziel is the quarterback, same thing they did against Buffalo," Lewis said. "But other than that, no, that doesn't impact you at all. You gotta go defend the offense, you don't defend the player. Particularly a midget."
Lewis was taken to task not only for the slam against Manziel but for the using the word midget, which is considered offensive, said NBC Sports blogger Michael David Smith in a Twitter post and follow up column on
Pro Football Talk.
"I bet Marvin Lewis has heard slurs that anger him," Smith wrote in his column. "I bet Lewis would be saddened if he heard his children called a slur. I bet if Lewis had a child with dwarfism, Lewis wouldn't use the word 'midget,' and he'd be infuriated if he heard others use it."
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Lewis issued an apology to Manziel and his use of the word on Tuesday.
"I'm aware that my comment on local radio (Monday) night was offensive to people of short stature and to their families and friends," said Lewis in a statement. "It was thoughtless on my part to use the word I did, and not excusable, and I greatly regret it. I since have read about this issue on the Little People of America website."
"I understand it better, and as I have apologized to Johnny Manziel and the Cleveland Browns community, I offer the same to all others who I offended, and I pledge that I will learn from this. I hope that my mistake and the resultant publicity may serve at least to help others not make similar insensitive comments in the future," Lewis said.
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