The Colorado coach pushed back Tuesday after associate Christopher "Uncle Neely" said Sanders offered critics cash to stop mentioning his name.
Deion Sanders spent part of his Tuesday press conference cleaning up a story he says was never real. The claim came from Christopher Neely, a YouTube creator known as "Uncle Neely" who has been around Sanders since his Jackson State days. On a roundtable internet program, Neely said Sanders had told critics, "Hey man, let's just do this. I give you $50,000 to not mention my name for a year," adding that nobody had taken him up on it.
Asked about it Tuesday, Sanders seemed caught off guard before someone off camera, presumably Neely, explained the reference to a show from the spring. Sanders then said the whole thing had been misread. "I think you misinterpreted that," he said. "I said . . . I would love to give you money and not mention my name, and I want to see how far that goes. That was a joke. That's what we were saying. Like some people live on your name."
Sanders did make a similar comment previously, and it sounded more like a hypothetical than a real offer. Whether critics believe that framing is another matter entirely.