Kyle Goon: Marlon Humphrey’s Trump appearance is more evidence of his shallow spectacle

It’s the perfect illustration of Marlon Humphrey: The day after he sat in an armored SUV with the president of the United States, he acknowledged that he has never voted.

“I did try to vote this last time, but my absentee ballot didn’t come in,” said Humphrey, who is 30 years old and would have been eligible to vote in three presidential election cycles. “So I don’t really have any political beliefs. I do plan on voting the next time around.”

I would advise baby steps. The next time any political opportunity comes his way, Humphrey can start by thinking — as opposed to jumping first.

If you only know Humphrey by his decade-long career with the Baltimore Ravens, by his podcast or the oddball sense of humor captured on his postgame livestreams on Instagram, it might have surprised you to see him suited up to shake hands with President Donald Trump.

Trump, who swept in Tuesday during the opening of a submarine manufacturing facility in Sparrow’s Point, has mostly gone out of his way to insult Baltimore and its leaders throughout his presidencies. But he had sweet words for Humphrey, Tyler Loop, Nick Moore and Ryan Eckley, who met him moments after the Marine One helicopter touched down in our neck of the woods.

“Oh, these guys are making a lot of money,” Trump said. “They’re doing very well. I think they’re 3-1 or something like that. They’re doing good.”

Coach Jesse Minter said Wednesday that the contingent of players who met Trump don’t represent the Ravens, and “the guys have the right and freedom to represent themselves.” In that sense, I could not agree more. If those guys wanted to be there, that’s their choice.

But with Humphrey, who Loop said helped come up with the opportunity to meet Trump, it’s just another illustration of why the same cornerback who has helped make game-changing plays for the Ravens consistently makes the people around him roll their eyes.

Oh, that Marlon.

Every person has a right to express their political opinion, but a sniff test of Humphrey’s own explanation is that being red or blue has little to do with why he organized a Trump meeting that he had to know would draw attention. And though Minter denied that it was a distraction, Humphrey clearly took a risk that it could be one.

I’m not calling out Marlon Humphrey for being conservative; I’m calling him out for naked, thoughtless clout-chasing. It’s a trait that defines him far outside the political arena.

Off the field, he styles himself as a Renaissance man: globe-trotting, offering hardline opinions on food that no one asked for, recording podcasts that allegedly offer his “real talk,” which rarely result in any talk of note.

Humphrey’s entire production is based on spectacle, a theater where he is the star. The content doesn’t matter as much as the show.

If you have ever wondered why Humphrey, the longest-tenured Raven on defense, wasn’t voted as one of the team’s five captains this year, I suspect it’s related to this part of his personality. How else could you explain it?

On the field and in the weight room, Humphrey is a hard worker, and he is always in shape. He’s competent at corner, and at times he has been among the NFL’s best.

But his spotlight-seeking gimmickry gets tired fast. It threatens to color everything about him, even his football career. Last year, as the Ravens sunk to 1-5, Humphrey was one of the more disappointing leaders, talking circles around his own words. After saying the team’s Week 1 loss in Buffalo happened because the Ravens lacked maturity, he denied credit for the quote just weeks later. “I don’t know which one of you just put that out there, but that was not my quote,” he said before claiming he was repeating what someone else had said.

The backpedal only helped identify Humphrey as one of the players who, even though he’s this deep in his NFL career, still seems immature.

It makes sense to me that Humphrey is a natural admirer of Trump — a person who commands attention but has little substantive character to offer as a true leader. Trump loves leeching off the reputation of athletes and coaches, who help him associate with a physical prowess he never reached and a caliber of winning that he would never have the patience or the work ethic to achieve.

Loop spoke in reverent tones about his respect for “the office of the President,” which we’ve all heard before. I think it’s a little funny when athletes fail to see (or seem indifferent) that the Trump administration exploits their own image to reflect competence the administration itself lacks in the governance of our country. I don’t agree with the political worldview that led to those players appearing with Trump, but ultimately their personal political expression is their own business.

I don’t think Humphrey, though, is in that category — and if he is, he certainly didn’t admit it when asked directly on Wednesday. It does not surprise me at all that Humphrey would document a car ride with Trump with the same giddiness as his own locker room after a Ravens victory, because they have one thing in common: Both spectacles direct attention his way. The New York Post, after all, did not put Loop’s, Moore’s or Eckley’s name in a headline leaking the appearance.

If Humphrey cares so much about Trump and the jobs the president announced are coming to Baltimore, why doesn’t he vote? Was he just happy to glad-hand and backslap someone who has sped up arrests and deportations, who has approved massive cuts to federal funding in Maryland, and who has spoken viciously about Baltimore on several occasions?

Humphrey’s own words only fuel the argument that he was just basking in the light of Trump’s clout. And honestly, the more you know Humphrey, that kind of checks out.

I get the sense that he’s trolling us all, intentionally looking for ways to prod and provoke his online audience — and if that’s all that Humphrey got out of it, it tells us how vapid he is.

Looking at Humphrey’s shift into the media over the last few years, I’d say he’s angling to be a talking head whenever his NFL career is over. To him, stunts like this are how he builds the image of someone who gets paid to be on TV or streamed online (after all, Pat McAfee has done the same thing).

But if that is indeed his plan, I’d say it’s going to be an uphill battle. Even after all this time in Baltimore, for all his highs and lows in the NFL, it still feels like Marlon Humphrey has nothing to say.