Georgia freshman receiver Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint scored a touchdown to extend Georgia’s lead over the Florida Gators, but in the process he suffered an absolutely horrific ankle injury.
This is one of those injuries that might be too much for anyone to even see once, much less multiple times, so if you don’t want to see it don’t watch the videos here, as it’s unavoidable. CBS made it even more unavoidable, though, as they showed it multiple times from multiple angles.
That was after Brad Nessler, having seen one replay, suggested it might be wise not to show it again at all.
(Again, you’re going to see a body part end up in a position that is completely unnatural, so if you don’t want to see that don’t watch.)
After a commercial break, they came back and showed this version, which was clearly at least edited in a way to try and cut out the injury as much as possible, but still.
Twitter certainly questioned the decision:
Why is CBS showing multiple replays of a gruesome injury?
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 7, 2020
Nessler: "We probably shouldn't show that again."
Producer: "Let's show it multiple times and freeze-frame it right when his ankle snaps!"
— Dr. Wes McKinzie (@WesMcKinzie) November 7, 2020
Yeah we don't need to see that again lets see what the pylon camera view looked like first though.
— Jim Cesak (@jcesak) November 7, 2020
WHY FOUR REPLAYS?? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU???@CBSSports @CBS
— Shawn McDonald (@shawnpmcd) November 7, 2020
There are many more, too.
Obviously it’s not quite as simple as blaming CBS for gratuitous showings; there was, after all, a replay review occurring to see if Rosemy-Jacksaint had broken the plane of the goal line before falling down after, well, shattering something in his lower leg. It’s a perfect storm. But in this specific case, it would seek most of the audience would have been better served by just letting the replay review take place offscreen, rather than the various angles of something that bad.
