There’s never a good time to belittle someone’s struggle with depression. Thursday was World Suicide Prevention Day. Skip Bayless could not have picked a worse time to call Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott weak for talking about his struggles.
Prescott was in tears on a recent episode of the syndicated In Depth with Graham Bensinger as he discussed his brother’s suicide. It happened in April. Prescott said the combination of losing his brother and the shift in the world as a result of the early days of the Covid-19 Pandemic in America made it hard for him to live his normal life.
It was not a good enough explanation for Skip Bayless. The Undisputed co-host said that it is hard to be a quarterback in the NFL. He called it the single most important leadership position in sports. That is the reason he doesn’t have sympathy for Dak Prescott and he implied that Prescott’s coaches and teammates wouldn’t either.
“You know and I know, this sport that you play, it is dog eat dog,” Bayless said to co-host Shannon Sharpe. “It is no compassion. No quarter given on the football field. If you reveal publicly any little weakness, it can effect your team’s ability to believe in you in the toughest spot.”
Bayless, who is no stranger to the label “hot take artist” was roundly condemned by his colleagues in the sports media. It didn’t matter their network. It didn’t matter their platform. None of them sided with Bayless.
One person that held off on condemnation for Bayless was ESPN’s Bomani Jones. Instead of rage, Jones said Bayless’s reaction to Dak Prescott’s struggle with depression made him feel empathy for the FS1 personality.
Skip Bayless has been largely silent on social media. So have his co-hosts Shannon Sharpe and Jenny Taft. No videos of the exchange appear on the Undisputed Twitter feed.
FOX issued a statement praising Dak Prescott for his honesty. The network also said “We do not agree with Skip Bayless’s opinion on Undisputed this morning. We have addressed the significance of this matter with Skip and how his insensitive comments were received internally at FOX and [by] our audience.”
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