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On today’s episode of ‘that NFL player said WHAT now?’ we listen, and we don’t judge as Carolina Panthers wide receiver Xavier Legette opens up about his taste for raccoon and how he ate it on Thanksgiving this year. The NFL rookie turned a lot of heads when he posted “Man, what I’m mostly excited to eat today is gonna be that raccoon” on his Instagram Stories back on Thanksgiving.
Flash forward two weeks and Xavier Legette was a guest on the St. Brown Podcast with Amon-Ra and Equanimeous St. Brown where he discussed growing up in podunk South Cackalacky (Mullins, S.C., population 4,663) and he opened up about his love of eating raccoon.
The hosts sort of led him into the conversation by asking him about his “hottest food take” and Legette knew they were almost certainly talking about raccoon. So he talked about how they ate raccoon on Thanksgiving this year, how he hunts them, skins them, and cooks them himself. The discussion kicks off around the 43:50 markin the episode which this video should start at if you hit ‘play’ but I’ve got the quotes below as well:
Xavier Legette told the hosts “I eat raccoon. Like a raccoon that you see in the trash.” In terms of procuring the trash pandas, he said he will “kill it, I skin ’em, cook ’em, eat ’em — all that.”
When prodded about the taste of raccoon, whose closest relative is a ring-tailed cat, Legette said that “coon’ got its own taste.” The dude then freely admitted he eats squirrels and rabbits. The latter I can understand. Rabbit is a delicacy throughout the world and especially in Europe. But my dude, you do NOT have to eat squirrels.
Xavier Legette’s rookie contract was a 4-year, $12,357,176 contract which included a $5,807,036 signing bonus and *ALL* of the money is guaranteed. I know that comfort food supersedes wealth/money but the thing about eating wild rodents is you never know what’s inside of them…
A professional athlete should be as careful as possible with what they put in their bodies during their prime earning years. Coming down with a parasite from eating raccoon or squirrel could derail Xavier Legette’s career in a needless way. That’s just my two cents.