Stephen A. Smith’s arousal might be rubbing off on ‘First Take’

Stephen A. Smith is building something special with his podcast and it appears to be rubbing off on ESPN’s First Take.

In the last 15 months, Smith’s podcast has gone from audio only, to a product that resembles a late-night TV show. Episode clips regularly go viral, Smith has amassed nearly 360,000 subscribers on YouTube and he’s done it all by making sure no topic is off limits. That includes one of his favorite topics, sex.

Smith has repeatedly used his platform to talk about boobs, fantasize about Kim Kardashian, ogle over Martha Stewart, scoff at trading sex for a Knicks championship, and reveal the worst day to be horny. But that borderline NSFW banter always happens on his podcast, while First Take attempts to remain more Disney friendly. That may have changed this week, however, when First Take put a confusing chyron on the screen.

Here’s the video for full context pic.twitter.com/5UpBoFwm4X

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 5, 2023

Come and what? Let’s address the elephant in the room. At first glance, it looks like “Come and f*** me.” I get it, technically, buying a vowel isn’t enough to complete the sentence, there’s still no room for the K. But tell me you looked at that chyron and read anything other than what I read.

Does anyone know what “Come N-F-C Me” is supposed to mean? Forget the screenshot, even with the video and full context of what the chyron was teasing on First Take, it still doesn’t make sense. Come and face me? Come and see me? Or is perception reality, and Stephen A. Smith’s podcast excitement is just rubbing off on someone behind the scenes at First Take.

[First Take]