Ben Roethlisberger on Derek Carr backlash: ‘Just because you cry doesn’t mean you’re less manly’

While fighting for support on a team that has traded more star players than won games in 2018, Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr was insistent on Tuesday that he never started crying on the field, as cameras appeared to show him doing during the team’s recent loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

“Not one tear. Not one time,” Carr tweeted this week, joining his brother Darren in calling out stories suggesting the quarterback’s “whimpers” have “fractured” his relationship with his teammates.

Even if Carr was crying, however, he’s got a defender in the Ben Roethlisberger.

Tearing down the old “there’s-no-crying-in” sports adage while addressing reporters Wednesday, the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise QB said he didn’t “know exactly the story you’re talking about” in regards to Carr but then went on to stick up for the ailing Raiders signal-caller.

“He might’ve been hurting. Who knows?” Roethlisberger said. “You lose a football game, if you’re not showing emotion, or if he gets up from something like that and he’s laughing, then he’s going to get chastised for not showing enough emotion, so … for me, I don’t think it makes us any less manly to show emotion.”

Carr, of course, seemed adamant earlier in the week that he wasn’t showing the kind of emotion Roethlisberger is describing. But that didn’t stop the Steelers quarterback from elaborating even more on why NFL players should be allowed to cry.

“As men, in general, we all need to show emotion,” he said. “I think there’s a misconception out there that as men, we shouldn’t show emotion. And I think that’s wrong. I think we need to show emotion whether it’s at a movie, if you want to cry if it’s funny, if it’s sad, if you want to be around your wife or girlfriend, and just because you cry doesn’t mean you’re any less manly. I think that’s a false narrative, and so, when it comes to football, if it hurts … I know I’ve cried in the locker room before, from both joy and pain.”

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