After things got tense between hosts Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless in the aftermath of Bayless’ tweet following Damar Hamlin’s scary injury, the two were back in relatively normal roles on Monday’s Skip and Shannon: Undisputed. Something notable did come up during a discussion about the Buffalo Bills. And while this didn’t rehash the awkward and tense exchanges that we’d seen recently from the pair, it did suggest that Bayless needs to do more research — a lot more research.
Bayless was talking about the performance of Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen in Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots.
“I don’t think anybody can do what he did,” Bayless said (H/T Twitter user, Awful Al). “If we can see the two throws that finally broke the game back open in favor of Buffalo. He throws to that kid Brown, who looks like he’s going to be a star at some point.”
https://twitter.com/AwfuIAl/status/1612521035537997829
He’s referring to a 42-yard touchdown pass that Allen threw to John Brown, which resulted in Brown giving the ball to trainer Denny Kellington, who had a lot to do with saving Hamlin’s life in Cincinnati after his collapse.
And it was a huge play in the game. It put the Bills up 28-17, after Nyheim Hines’ second kickoff return for a touchdown that Buffalo back ahead. Brown’s touchdown actually ended up being the game-winner in the 35-23 victory. From that end, there’s nothing to dispute. It was a huge play in the game and a great play by both Allen and Brown.
The words Bayless used to talk about, Brown, though, were comedically off the mark. Brown is 32. We could cut Bayless slack for the use of the word “kid.” That’s a term that some people use a lot and to be fair, Brown is much younger than Bayless.
But saying a player “looks like he’s going to be a star at some point” is usually a comment reserved for players early in their careers. This is his ninth NFL season. Sunday was the 103rd game of his career. It’s hard to let that slide. And while Brown has never been the NFL’s best receiver, he has two 1,000-yard seasons to his name.
Bayless may be taking a page out of the book of his friend and longtime former co-host — Stephen A. Smith. Smith once famously noted that he was looking forward to a game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, specifically the matchup of Chargers tight end Hunter Henry and Chiefs linebacker Derrick Johnson. At the time, the Chargers played in Los Angeles, Henry had missed the entire season with an injury and Johnson was no longer in the league, let alone on the Chiefs.
Perhaps Bayless and Smith have the same fact-checker.
[Awful Al on Twitter]
