Colin Cowherd said another dumb thing about John Wall this week. Judging by the lunar cycle, the timing is just about right. Ever since Wall came into the league as a rookie, and dared to do a harmless pregame dance, Cowherd has said a lot of dumb things about John Wall.
The occasion this time was Wall reportedly being cut by Team USA. Great and talented players getting cut by Team USA is bound to happen given our country is pretty good at the game and all.
But there was only one person who took great pleasure at seeing John Wall getting the axe from Team USA, and to nobody’s surprise it was Cowherd.
God bless Dan Steinberg at DC Sports Bog, who deserves all the bonuses and vacation time he can earn, for having to transcribe Cowherd’s nonsense for the last several years. Here’s the latest bit of ignominy under the unique veil of hot takes that is a “snap judgment”…
“About five years ago I made a snap judgment on John Wall, a basketball player for the Washington Wizards,” Cowherd said on Tuesday. “Number one pick. Super talented. He came out in his first home game and did a 30-second dance. And I said first game, really? Would Derek Jeter do that? Tom Brady? Magic?
“You can do it after you win titles. You can do it nine years in the league. First home game? If that is deep in you, that something told you — even if you were egged on — to do that and it was a good call, first home game, you’re just not going to be my guy. That’s idiotic. That’s bad judgment.
“Entering his fifth year in the dreadful Eastern Conference with a very good supporting cast right now: One playoff series win. You judged him on a snapshot! Damn straight. And right now I’m validated. It was racially tinged! Oh really. Who was harder on Tim Tebow than me? The Jimmer, who’s whiter than Idaho. Johnny Manziel. Had nothing to do with race…
“You made a snap judgment! Yup. To this point did. Not always right, not always wrong. Did it on Anthony Bosch, did it on John Wall. To deny snap judgments can also be right is intellectually dishonest.”
If Cowherd wants to play the “snap judgments” card, maybe he should look at himself in the mirror at all the “snap judgments” we can make about him as a person and a sports talk radio host. After all, Cowherd is the one who…
– Encouraged his listeners to shut down The Big Lead for no reason at all.
– Gloated over the death of Sean Taylor.
– Implied that Roger Goodell was a father figure to fatherless black NFL players.
– Said that people living in Ohio and Indiana were bringing unemployment upon themselves.
Enough words have been written on this website and others about the disgraceful comments of Colin Cowherd and why he and his shows (there’s multiples of them now) do nothing but give everyone who has turned off ESPN in the last decade further justification to do so. Cowherd’s antics are all that is wrong with ESPN, at least equally as much as Skip Bayless, maybe more. As much of a pock mark as Bayless and First Take are on ESPN’s brand, they never tried to brag about how right they were over a man’s death. That was Cowherd.
At least Bayless and the Embrace Debate movement at ESPN has an air of absurd theater about it. For all the carnival barking and offensive, mind-numbing things First Take has done, at least they are open and honest about doing it all for ratings. With Cowherd, you get the sense that he actually believes the stuff that he says. And it’s not just sports, nobody is safe from Cowherd’s screeds, no matter how hypocritical they turn out to be.
This is what Cowherd said at the time of Sean Taylor’s death, boiling a human tragedy down to his need to be proven right…
No, all the information’s not in. But I feel pretty confident that my gut feeling, like any of yours, by the way, is right and was right.
Once again, this was Cowherd this week on John Wall. Notice the similarities…
“Entering his fifth year in the dreadful Eastern Conference with a very good supporting cast right now: One playoff series win. You judged him on a snapshot! Damn straight. And right now I’m validated.
And really, that’s the issue at hand here. Whether it’s John Wall’s career or Sean Taylor’s death, the only thing that matters in sports and in life is just how right Colin Cowherd is at any given time. That’s why he sees no problem in gloating over a man’s tragic shooting, or people being unemployed, or holding grudges against athletes for a twenty second dance they did four years ago.
This behavior is everything wrong and objectionable with media in 2014. And yet, ESPN doesn’t tell Colin Cowherd “hey, maybe you should cut back on your weird obsession with John Wall.” No, they reward him and his warped ego with more shows and more airtime. No wonder so many fans have given up on getting their sports news from ESPN in recent years and can only stomach the network for live events. After seeing more comments like these rewarded time and again, you can’t blame them.
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