Yesterday, former NFL running back Rashard Mendenhall set X ablaze with a post arguing for a Pro Bowl split down racial lines because of his anger toward white commentators. ESPN 1000 morning host David Kaplan joked he was who Mendenhall had in mind when making the post.
In the post, Mendenhall wrote “I’m sick of average white guys commenting on football. Y’all not even good at football. Can we please replace the Pro Bowl with an All-Black vs. All-White bowl so these cats can stop trying to teach me who’s good at football.”
It is unclear what triggered Mendenhall to send such a message. In a later post, he clarified his comments by saying “Simply tired of being berated by people who aren’t experts in de game. We jus pretend like I’m the only athlete tired of fans talking trash? You (this) upset over a single tweet. What about us? Like me or not, I’m a GREAT in football. This proves my point, u can’t speak on ball alone.”
On Kap & JHood Tuesday morning, longtime Chicago sports radio host David Kaplan joked that he was the posterchild for Mendenhall’s displeasure with “average white guys commenting on football”.
“He was talking about me,” Kaplan said before reading the post made by Mendenhall.
“We read this yesterday off the air right before we left,” Jonathan Hood said. “It was like ‘What’s the purpose of this? Why would he say that? He’s just trying to start a firestorm’.”
Many in sports radio took the post as a joke, taking time throughout their shows to make up hypothetical White vs Black rosters in a game. Other shows and outlets, notably OutKick, took issue with the racial portions of Mendenhall’s comments.
