Sophie Cunningham has been front and center in the conversation around the WNBA since revealing her stance against the inclusion of trans athletes in women’s sports last month.
Now, before that story even had time to cool off, she is back in the news for something that happened on the court. A former NFL quarterback has now weighed in with his own take on the situation.
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Boomer Esiason’s Take on DiJonai Carrington‘s Foul on Sophie Cunningham
During last week’s game between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky, DiJonai Carrington committed a hard foul on Cunningham. As Cunningham drove in for a fast-break layup, Carrington’s arm caught her across the neck and face, knocking her to the floor.
Cunningham popped right back up, walked toward Carrington, and had to be held back by her teammates before things got worse. Officials went back and reviewed the play, decided it deserved more than the original call, and upgraded it to a Flagrant 2. Carrington was then tossed from the game.
Not long after, Carrington took to Threads and posted “WHITE PRIVILEGE,” tagging the Fever in the post. That single message turned into a much bigger story.
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Esiason has now weighed in on the situation. The former NFL quarterback stated that Carrington’s actions appeared to come from what he described as a genuine dislike for Cunningham.
“I think the the whole thing was just, because of the timeline of everything and because of, if you want to call it, the jealous nature, the legitimate hatred for somebody because of what they believe in and because of what they look like, and because of how popular they are, I could say it’s a targeted attack,” Esiason said on “Boomer & Gio” on WFAN.
“But then on top of that, it’s not only white privilege she puts out there. On the next post, she puts the game date of the next time they are gonna play the Fever. I mean, that’s almost like, you know, it feels to me like a threat,” he added.
This isn’t the first time Esiason has spoken up about this whole situation. He also went after the officiating crew directly, saying they should have ejected Carrington the moment the foul was committed instead of waiting for a review to upgrade the call to a Flagrant 2.
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“Well, Carrington had that hard foul on Cunningham, basically clotheslining her on the way to the basket. Officials originally assessed it as a flagrant 1.”
“I mean, what are the officials, [expletive]? This was a hatchet job. This was on purpose. This was anger management 101. Yeah, it was. I cannot believe that Stephanie White, the coach of the Fever, reacted the way that she did and did not stand up for her player. It’s insane what this league is doing to itself,” Esiason said on an episode of his WFAN morning show.
Cunningham herself had a quiet night against the Sky as she scored just 3 points. But the Fever didn’t need her offense to carry them. Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark stepped up, putting up 27 and 26 points respectively, and the Fever pulled out a 90-86 win over the Sky.
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After the game, Fever head coach Stephanie White didn’t dispute the Flagrant 2 call. She thought the officials got it right. But she also stopped short of accusing Carrington of doing it on purpose.
With Cunningham already at the center of several WNBA debates in recent weeks, the incident has only brought more attention to her.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.
