FS1 co-hosts Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless clashed Wednesday in an intense and awkward exchange over Bayless’ controversial tweet following Damar Hamlin’s collapse on Monday Night Football.
Sharpe, usually positioned across from Bayless as his daily debate sparring partner on Undisputed, missed Tuesday’s show amid the backlash over a tweet Bayless posted the night of Hamlin’s collapse. In which Bayless wondered about how the NFL might handle the rescheduling of the all-important game. Yet, still said that Hamlin’s injury made the outcome of the game seem “irrelevant.”
No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game – but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) January 3, 2023
Fans, athletes, and influencers blasted Bayless for talking about playing the game in the immediate aftermath of the incident, which made Sharpe – a former NFL legend – missing the next morning’s edition of the show highly suspicious.
On Wednesday, Sharpe assumed his usual spot across from Bayless and attempted to explain his absence, but things quickly went awry once he began discussing Bayless’ tweet.
“There’s been a lot of speculation about why I wasn’t on here yesterday and I won’t get into speculation or conjecture or innuendo. But I will say this, watching that game on Monday night, what happened to Damar Hamlin struck me a little different. As a brotherhood in the NFL, when injuries happen, we know injuries are part of the game. I’ve seen guys suffer ACLs and Achilles tears.
“But I’ve never seen anybody have to be revived and fight for their life on the field, so it struck me a little differently. I remember seeing my brother paralysed on the field, temporarily, and he was able to regain focus. Skip tweeted something and although I disagreed with the tweet. Hopefully Skip will take it down…”
Is anyone running FS1? What is going on there? pic.twitter.com/8pG4oCHubr
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) January 4, 2023
Bayless then interrupted: “I’m not going to take it down. I stand by what I tweeted.”
“Let me finish, go ahead,” Sharpe shot back. “I cannot even get through a monologue without you interrupting.”
“I didn’t want to yesterday get into a situation when Damar was the issue, we should have been talking about him and not getting into your tweet,” Sharpe explained. “That’s what I was going to do. But you can’t even let me finish my opening monologue without you interrupting.”
Bayless countered, “Nobody here had a problem with that tweet.”
“No. Clearly the bosses wanted you to offer an explanation,” Sharpe said. “So clearly somebody had a problem.”
Bayless did indeed offer an explanation for his tweet hours later.
Nothing is more important than that young man's health. That was the point of my last tweet. I'm sorry if that was misunderstood but his health is all that matters. Again, everything else is irrelevant. I prayed for him & will continue to.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) January 3, 2023
Though, he never took down the original.
So, who is at fault here? While much of the media is blasting Bayless for “interrupting” Sharpe’s monologue, it must be said that Sharpe put Bayless in an impossible position. He says he missed yesterday’s show because he didn’t want Bayless’ tweet to be the main topic when they should have been talking about Hamlin. So, why bring it up two days later? Sharpe says he doesn’t want to get into “conjecture or innuendo” about why he was absent on Tuesday. But then he immediately feeds the “conjecture” and “innuendo” by bringing up the tweet.
A topic which – at least according to Bayless – Sharpe said he was not going to bring up during his monologue.
So what is Bayless supposed to do? Sit there like a potted plant while Sharpe mischaracterizes (in Bayless’ view) his tweet?
It makes no sense. It also needs to be said that it’s Skip’s show. He’s the boss. If he wants to interrupt Sharpe – especially if Sharpe is going off-script on a topic that makes Bayless look bad – he has the right to interrupt him.
The whole controversy is stupid, anyway. Bayless was merely wondering how and when the NFL might reschedule the game. That’s an entirely valid thing to think about, especially given his job. He made it abundantly clear that Hamlin’s collapse made everything football-related seem irrelevant. Twitter has ruined our public discourse. People don’t even think or read anymore. This whole episode is all the proof you need of that.
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