Skip Bayless was the subject of much ridicule and anger on Monday night. The game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals came to a standstill after Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed in the first quarter. Players on the field were in tears as medics performed CPR on Hamlin. Social media buzzed with concern including from Bayless, who sent out two tweets expressing disbelief on what he had seen.
It was his third tweet that rubbed many people the wrong way.
Tuesday morning, Bayless appeared on his FS1 show Undisputed alone. His partner Shannon Sharpe had taken the day off. In fact, Bayless says that after the incident, there was debate about whether or not it was appropriate at all to shoot a new episode of the show.
The show’s opening segment featured Bayless looking into a camera and describing what he saw and felt.
He says that he just tweets. He usually does not read what others have to say. It was his bosses at FOX that alerted him to the reaction to his tweet. Bayless says it was clear that many people that objected did not comprehend his intended message. He said the tweet was “Widely misconstrued, misinterpreted.”
“As a journalist, I was putting myself in the heads of NFL executives, starting with Roger Goodell, who were having to figure out on the fly what to do here and I stated the glaringly obvious that no doubt the NFL is considering postponing the game,” he explained.
Skip Bayless then clarified that if you read the tweet outside of the emotional bubble we were all in after Hamlin suffered what turned out to be cardiac arrest, the message should be more clear.
“My point was it was all rendered irrelevant by what was happening on the football field in front of all those football players, those gladiators, those warriors. They were clearly shaken to their foundations.”
As of this publishing, Damar Hamlin is still in a hospital in Cincinnati. His heartbeat is back in rhythm, but he remains in critical condition.
Bayless added that this is one of the first times he can remember the NFL stopping a game for the good of the human beings on the field. Usually, the league operates with a “next man up mentality.”
“The NFL has done exactly the right thing,” the Undisputed host concluded. “They have postponed. I have no idea how they are going to make this game up and I don’t care.”
