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Jerry Rice backpedals with the best of them: 'Never used stickum'

ben rohrbach
Senior writer
Jerry Rice backpedals with the best of them: 'Never used stickum'

Legendary San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice was just another NFL fan on Thursday night, watching the New Orleans Saints handle the unbeaten Atlanta Falcons and offering his take on Twitter.

Falcons fans, frustrated by their team's effort, didn't take too kindly to Rice's relatively benign analysis.

After a handful of folks responded to Rice by suggesting the Falcons could've used a little stickum on quarterback Matt Ryan's 14 incompletions during Thursday's 31-21 loss, the NFL's receiving leader in catches, yards and touchdowns — by a wide margin — didn't want to touch the sticky subject.

Signing off as #Goat — or Greatest Of All Time — is a fantastic move by the Pro Football Hall of Famer. Might have to incorporate that into the social media game myself. Except, there's one little problem with Rice's suggestion that he "Never used Stickum!" Because he kind of already admitted using it.

That admission — "I know this might be a little illegal, guys, but I just sprayed a little stickum on 'em, just to make sure that they were a little sticky" — came during a Jan. 17 ESPN piece titled, "The Evolution of Gloves." Stickum, of course, was banned by the NFL in 1981, four years before Rice entered the league.

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Rice's statement got more play than he might've expected as a result of its timing, as deflate-gate hit the very next day. Four days later, Rice went on The Jim Rome Show and took the Patriots to task over allegations they intentionally deflated footballs prior to beating the Colts in the AFC championship game.

"I'm going to be point blank: I feel like it's cheating, because you have an edge up on your opponent and it's unfortunate that it happened. I think you have to really put an asterisk on it, because this is going to follow them, you know, for the rest of their lives, because when you look at it, when people go back and they think about the New England Patriots, they're going to think about these controversies."

Obviously, Patriots fans proceeded to call Rice out for his hypocrisy. The 10-time First-Team All-Pro selection must've recognized the errors of his ways, since he tweeted on Feb. 7: "I apologize ppl after doing my research about stickum! The NFL banned this in 1981. All players did it! #equalplayingfield"

The ol' "everybody's doing it" excuse is always a good one. He's since deleted that tweet, by the way, although it lives on in a screenshot. So, we know Rice understands how to use Twitter, but it seems he doesn't quite grasp that people's minds aren't as easily erased. The Internet never forgets, Jerry.

And why is he backpedaling on his original admission, anyway? He should just embrace it and begin immediately endorsing sticky rice worldwide. That'd be a lot more lucrative than his Twitter analysis.

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Ben Rohrbach

is a contributor for Ball Don't Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!