Salisbury Comes Clean About Being Dirty

↵↵⇥“I was ashamed, and I didn’t want to say anything,” says Salisbury, who was an NFL quarterback for eight years and an ESPN NFL analyst for 12. “I thought it would go away and let my ego get in the way. Since then, I’ve beat myself up about it more than 10 baseball bats could. A stupid mistake can cost you, and this has really cost me. I should have been having this conversation a long time ago.”↵↵This stupid mistake Salisbury refers to is the now-infamous story of taking a photo of his private parts on a cell phone camera and showing them to people in a Connecticut bar. A few months back, Deadspin posted an eye-witness account from an anonymous source who claimed to be one of the ‘lucky’ few involved in this incident. Per Deadspin:↵↵⇥“Anyway, he said hello and asked if I wanted to see a picture of his baby. I knew he had kids, but thought they were all older, but what did I know, maybe he had recently had another. So, of course I said sure.↵⇥↵⇥“The picture was on his cell phone, and needless to say it was not a child. It was a shot of him lying on his back, on his bed, naked…”↵⇥

↵↵You’ll have to go there to read the rest of the story. Salisbury had long denied the veracity of the rumor, and this woman’s claims. He threatened to sue Deadspin and any other sites that posted the rumor as fact or in any way defamed his character. He then made good on his threat to Deadspin, filing a lawsuit in October. The website has no comment on this latest admission. ↵

↵↵⇥“I needed help. I had a lot of inner anger for years.”↵↵He now seems to be coming clean in a last-ditch effort to salvage any semblance of a media career. Since not getting renewed at ESPN, he’s worked for a Dallas sports-talk radio station that he has since been dropped from as well. Salisbury either can’t see or doesn’t want to admit that his role as a football analyst can be filled by any number of former players who are more recent and far more relevant than he ever was. Add the fact that his bullish style rubbed viewers the wrong way to this immense amount of baggage and it’s clear he’s put himself in a difficult situation for anyone to want to hire him.↵↵He’s really out of options at this point, and obviously thinks – calling his mistake “stupid…but not malicious” – that coming clean is the only thing left for him to do. Whether or not his lawsuit gets rescinded remains to be seen. At this point for Salisbury, it might make sense to let things go. If he’s really concerned about the effect this had on his kids, he probably doesn’t want to go through a discovery hearing with Gawker.↵

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