Bomani Jones: Skip Bayless is excellent at doing television

At a time when most people tossed the old ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ adage out the window when it comes to Skip Bayless, Bomani Jones had something nice to say.

Jones recently joined Ethan Sherwood Strauss on his House of Strauss podcast and during the wide-ranging interview, they eventually touched on the topic of Skip Bayless amid his apparent feud with Shannon Sharpe.

And while it’s easy to pile on Bayless after his poorly timed tweet about Damar Hamlin, Jones had a timely compliment for the Undisputed host, recognizing his ability as a performer.

“The other thing that people underestimate about him is that he is excellent at doing television,” Jones admitted. “And when I say he’s excellent…two things that he has in his favor that can never be forgotten, he is very clear and he don’t stammer. When it’s time to talk about something, you are going to know exactly how Skip feels and his points are typically well supported. He doesn’t just come out of there and pull it out of his keester,”

Troy Aikman would probably beg to differ.

“He’ll come up with some rationale or explanation for what it is and he’ll stand on it and he’ll say it before just about anybody else,” Jones continued. “My thing with him is, he used to look like he was having more fun doing it and it was a much more likable thing at that point. But it looks very serious to him now.”

Part of that seriousness is caused by the lack of new voices on Undisputed. It’s Bayless and Sharpe playing one-on-one every single day. Stephen A. Smith has a rotating cast on First Take which has kept the mood lighter, but even when it was just Smith and Max Kellerman or Smith and Skip Bayless, they were still joined by fresh voices daily.

Bayless and Sharpe have no interviews, no guest analysts, and they barely even let show moderator Jen Hale speak. It can’t be healthy to just yell at the same person every day. The show would benefit from an occasional conversation to break the relentless bickering, but they never introduce a new face to offer some diversity of thought.

“Skip really believes that this is like what he was meant to do in this world,” Jones told Strauss. “He’s on this in that way. But I get why people like watching him. And I think an important thing to note about watching him is, most people are watching him once or twice a month. They’re not watching enough to get tired of him.”

If people would get tired of watching Bayless argue with Sharpe every day, how are Bayless and Sharpe not getting tired of arguing every day? After six and a half years together, maybe they are.

[House of Strauss]