Last week, one of the main topics in the NFL was players dealing with mental health issues. On his show, Speak For Yourself, Marcellus Wiley responded to Lane Johnson’s decision to retire and Calvin Ridley stepping away from the game for mental health reasons by saying the NFL isn’t for people who are physically or mentally weak.
Chris Long played with Lane Johnson in Philadelphia in 2017 and 2018 and responded back to Wiley with a tweet by defending his teammate as Long took issue with the way that mental health and mental weakness was combined.
Chris Long decided to take time on his Friday podcast, Green Light With Chris Long, to address Wiley publicly because according to Long, Wiley’s words “made [his] blood boil.”
As Long continues to try to raise awareness about of mental health issues, he hopes that not everyone ends up talking like Wiley. He said it will only hurt the situation.
“The point of this is avoiding the next thing we didn’t see. If everyone was talking like Marcellus Wiley, nobody would be talking about this stuff. Then, we would have more guys who struggle silently and then snap. That’s what we are trying to avoid. He was teammates with Junior Seau, which is part of the thing which respectfully I did not get when I heard that.”
Nothing Marcellus Wiley said indicated that he knew specifics of either Lane Johnson’s or Calvin Ridley’s struggles. According to Chris Long, speaking about these issues without an informed point of view does not help.
“I think when it comes to these situations, the point that we are missing here, some of us, is I don’t think it’s necessary that you give guys or girls gold medals when they talk about this shit, but you have to just respect their mental health. That’s literally it. If you don’t know anything about their situation, maybe just respect it.”
Long said that Wiley was welcome to come on the show and further talk about his comments. He thought about sending him a direct message but decided not to because Wiley didn’t direct message Johnson on Twitter.
“I totally respect what that show’s about. You got to do your numbers, you got to get your clicks, and sometimes you got to go to work and say some disingenuous shit, I get that. But, when it crosses over and it touches someone personally that’s in the business that you are commenting on, people are not going to respond well to it…Sometimes, it’s ok to be pissed off at some dumb s**t you heard on the internet. Doesn’t mean I don’t respect Marcellus or like him…Just give these guys their respect right now and the next guys won’t have to struggle quietly.”