It doesn’t take very long to look back on Skip Bayless’ career to see that he’s made it to where he is today by saying some pretty ridiculous things.
He’s taken jabs at kids, consistently called players out of their names, and made insensitive comments about players’ personal lives. That’s Skip’s bag — it’s what he’s always done.
Along the way he’s always had co-hosts who would take the pressure off of him. They’d bail him out with a bit of understanding. Someone like Stephen A. Smith back in the day, for example, might provide a bit of missing context or a bit of hilarity to lighten the situation. And Bayless has been able to slide because of that.
But Bayless doesn’t have that on Tuesday. Shannon Sharpe wasn’t on Undisputed after Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed and was taken to the hospital before Monday’s game against the Bengals was postponed.
Before I go on, I should be clear: Shannon Sharpe has not spoken or provided any context on why he isn’t on Tuesday’s show. This might not be the protest people think it is.
We do know that Bayless’s normal Undisputed co-host wasn’t at work on Tuesday when it was time for Skip to offer up an explanation and apology for his awful tweets about the Damar Hamlin situation.
He was on his own for this one. He admitted that Fox almost didn’t have a show today because of the situation at hand.
Skip bayless apologizes for Damar Hamlin tweet
Unc Shannon sharpe didn’t show up to undisputed today pic.twitter.com/6qguuo7EBY
— Shannonnn sharpes Burner (PARODY Account) (@shannonsharpeee) January 3, 2023
“Allow me to say up front that I apologize for what we’re going to set out to do here today if it offends anyone. Because we’re going to try to do the show pretty much as we usually do the show. But, I’ll admit up front, I’m still shook up by what happened last night to Damar Hamlin. In fact, I’m still wrecked. In fact, I’m not sure that I’m capable of doing this show today. But, after sleeping on it, I’ve decided to give it a try. Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe we will fail. But we’re going to try. We wrestled through much of the night to even do a show today because, in our minds, we almost can’t win with this.”
Obviously, Sharpe is a former football player with plenty of connections to the NFL still. One can imagine seeing something so traumatic happen to Damar Hamlin could easily cause someone like him to need take some time and step away.
Sharpe tweeted about Hamlin after what happened on Monday night.
Please keep Demar Hamlin and his family in your thoughts and prayers. NFL doesn’t have a manual on how to proceed after an incident like this. #MondayNightFootball #BillsVsBengals
— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) January 3, 2023
At some point, we may get additional context or reasoning as to why he isn’t there. And it may have nothing to do at all with Bayless and what he said.
Regardless, this is a situation Bayless needs to answer for himself. None of that burden should be placed on another co-host. And, without Sharpe there, Bayless is being rightfully forced to bear it all.
People on Twitter talked about Sharpe’s absence:
