Former Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs is facing felony DUI charges after crashing his Corvette into another car at high speed and killing someone on Tuesday morning and many people around the football world have responded to the news in the last few days.
Giants wide receiver Kadarius Toney‘s response was among those to garner attention because it seemed to downplay the severity of what happened in Las Vegas.
“We young . . . everybody make mistakes. . . y’all lookin at the situation like “this or that” kuz it ain’t y’all . . . having so much too say . . . he know he messed up don’t drag em for it . . . that’s goofy to me . . . just pray for the families involved,” Toney wrote on Twitter.
On Thursday, Giants head coach Joe Judge said that he spoke to Toney about the tweet. Judge said he has “no questions about this guy’s character” while offering a reminder that it’s important to give thought to how you express yourself.
“It’s important that we understand how we articulate our words and put it out there,” Judge said, via Darryl Slater of NJ.com. “I know where his heart was with that. I think sometimes, it comes across that you read it and you say, ‘This doesn’t really sound the right way.’ I think it’s more about making sure we articulate our words. To me, it’s always important to understand someone’s heart. Sometimes, guys are going to make a mistake in terms of how they articulate or verbalize something. But when you understand the core of what someone is trying to say — and you talk to a guy and you understand the relationship — maybe he didn’t get the point across exactly, [but] you understand it’s coming from the right place.”
Judge said he also spoke to the whole team about the Ruggs situation because he has former teammates and friends in the locker room and sent the same message about how to share thoughts about the incident.