Janoris Jenkins on use of offensive term: People just took it the wrong way

[Giant]

The Giants waived Janoris Jenkins, because, coach Pat Shurmur said, of the cornerback’s “refusal to acknowledge the inappropriate and offensive language” Jenkins used on Twitter. Jenkins apologized after hitting unemployment.

Now employed again, after the Saints claimed him off waivers this week, Jenkins denies ever standing by his use of the offensive term for people with intellectual disabilities, blames others for twisting his words and offered an apology to “whoever I offended.”

“I mean, I never stood by it,” Jenkins told Saints’ beat writers this week, via Amie Just of The Times-Picayune. “I mean, you know, they twisted it. I said I’m sorry to whoever I offended. You know the way I was raised, we got different cultures and different terms that you use. If I was to go out there and say, ‘Hey, you went r—-ed on the football field,’ would you look at it as me talking about somebody disabled or would you look at me saying, ‘Oh, he did some crazy stuff out there, some amazing stuff?’ It’s just a different term, and I feel like people just took it the wrong way. Once again, like I did five days ago, I’ll do it again: I apologize if I offended anybody or anybody with those disabilities. I didn’t mean it that way.”

Jenkins directed the offensive term at a fan during a Twitter spat as he was sitting out practice last week with an ankle injury.

He is healthy now and with the Saints now. While he hasn’t yet put his use of an offensive word completely behind him, Jenkins has “left New York in New York.”

“It couldn’t have worked out no better,” Jenkins said. “I’m blessed. I’ve got a opportunity to be on a winning team.”