There’s often a lot of sports media discussion around criticism from national media members who don’t often interact with a particular team or player. Some of the shots at that are overblown at times. But there can be value to having a critic talk with the subject of their criticism, as happened recently with Ryan Clark and Tyreek Hill on The Pivot Podcast.
Hill (notably, wearing a shirt referencing the “handcuffs” celebration after he scored following a controversial September pregame arrest) has been under fire from a lot of people lately. That was especially true after he seemingly removed himself from the Miami Dolphins’ final regular-season game in January and offering an “I’m out, bro” as part of a longer answer about his future after the game. That saw criticism for his approach, including from Clark on ESPN.
And, as part of a Pivot stream at the blue carpet for the EA Sports Madden Bowl party last Friday, Hill brought that up to Clark. But Clark explained why he said what he did, and the two seemed to be okay with each other in the in the end. Here’s the clip, which Clark posted to X Saturday:
If you say it with your chest on TV you better be able to say it to the athlete’s face. @cheetah took issue with some of my criticism of him following his locker room comments after a loss to the @nyjets, & he let me know about it on the @EAMaddenNFL blue carpet!
I shared my… pic.twitter.com/1nxWFmixtZ
— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) February 15, 2025
Hill starts that by addressing Clark’s Pivot co-hosts Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor with “I love y’all two, but this guy right here. This y’all’s dude? He’s pissing me off. My mom’s always sending me stuff about what Mr. Ryan Clark’s said about me.” Clark then says “Here’s what I said about you: when you go into the locker room and you say what you said, that’s not leadership. And I’ll say that to your face. I’m never going to say anything about y’all that I wouldn’t say in front of y’all, because I know I paint a certain picture.”
Clark then continues with “I’m pro-player all the time. But in that situation, you a leader, right? And people look at you not only for what you do in Miami, but what you do overall. In my opinion, you’re better than that.” Hill says “You’re right,” and Clark says “Having calmed down, how do you see that situation now?” Hill says “I feel just like you said. You know what I’m saying? I feel exactly like you said I do. No bad blood against anybody.”
There’s some merit to how this played out. It’s notable that Clark’s first response was to explain exactly what he had said, especially with Hill saying he was seeing this from clips sent to him; there is sometimes context that gets lost along the way there. Clark also did so in a calm way, making this a lot less heated than other on-air discussions we’ve seen even between some shows’ co-hosts. And he deserves credit for maintaining his position with Hill there questioning it rather than backing off it, and this seems to have led to the two working this out.
The takeaway here isn’t necessarily “All sports drama would be solved if national figures talked to the people they’re criticizing.” Local figures can be critical too (and don’t always regularly talk to the subjects of their criticism), and national figures can have plenty of information on a local front even without being in a locker room. But there certainly can be some merit to national figures considering if they would maintain the same take if talking directly to a player, and there can be merit to critics and subjects of criticism talking to each other. At any rate, it seemed to work out well in this case.
