Skip Bayless should hope there’s a statute of limitations on Dallas Cowboys players requesting anonymity when giving a quote.
Injured New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was less than pleased to learn someone from the organization leaked the fact that Zach Wilson was reluctant to be inserted back into the starting lineup this week. Rodgers called the leak “chicken***t” and accused whoever was behind it of attempting to “assassinate” Wilson’s character.
Wednesday morning on FS1’s Undisputed, Bayless reacted to Rodgers’ disdain by noting the issue is not exclusive to the Jets. According to Bayless, anonymous sources attempt to expose their teammates all the time in NFL locker rooms.
“I’ve been involved in hundreds of these types of situations,” Bayless said referring to his time as a columnist and reporter.
Bayless proceeded to cite one specific example that occurred after the Cowboys traded for Herschel Walker, despite already having Tony Dorsett on their roster. According to Bayless, Dorsett was beloved in the locker room, and Walker was not.
“Herschel immediately became the media darling in Dallas, because he did 1,000 push-ups and 1,000 sit-ups every morning without fail,” Bayless recalled. “And trust me, his teammates didn’t buy that phony baloney for one second. So numbers of those teammates came to me and said, ‘You got to write that this guy is not for real, you got to expose him because this is fraudulent. He does not do 1,000 and 1,000.’
“Again, these were anonymous quotes. I’ll tell you who they were from because they would stand behind them today. But it was Everson Walls and Dennis Thurman and Mike Downs and Ron Fellows and that group…So I wrote it from anonymous sources.”
They’re not anonymous anymore! Bayless insists he’s in the clear to reveal his sources on exposing Walker now that we’re decades removed from those quotes being given to him. And he’s probably right. Those players no longer have to worry about being blamed for disrupting their locker room by attempting to expose Walker. Plus, Walker has since done and said much stranger things than lying about his push-up count in recent years.
As far as Rodgers is concerned over the Jets having a leak, he should look no further than their head coach Robert Saleh, who seemingly texts WFAN host Joe Benigno before and after every game without a filter. And if Saleh says something interesting to Benigno, the radio host isn’t going to wait decades to reveal his source the way Bayless did.
