Dan Le Batard rankled conservative site and self-dubbed free speech defender Outkick when he asked former quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick about a widespread injury rumor.
Last season, Fitzpatrick suffered what would ultimately be a career-ending injury by partially dislocating his hip in Week 1. Following the injury, a sports radio caller went on 106.7 The Fan in Washington D.C. and claimed he saw Fitzpatrick injure the hip on a waterslide before the game. On Tuesday, Le Batard and his co-host Stugotz inquired about the rumor, but Fitzpatrick didn’t play along, prompting Outkick’s Mark Harris to write an article blasting the podcast hosts.
“When Le Batard and his gang aren’t talking about woke politics, how racist the country is, or ambushing Michelle [sic] Tafoya because she enjoys free speech, they sometimes welcome former athletes on the show,” Harris wrote after referring to the Le Batard Show’s line of questioning to Fitzpatrick as “dumb.”
The career-ending injury happened barely one year ago. Understandably, Fitzpatrick might not be ready to joke about it and feed into a rumor that if true, would likely require him to pay a portion of his contract back to the Washington Commanders. But Outkick’s wrath over a silly question, in which the host was dressed as former WWE star Kane, prompted Le Batard to respond on Twitter.
Oh fuck all the way off, @Outkick. You can’t always take the other side against me so reflexively that you take too seriously a question I posed while dressed as a professional wrestler. And, if you are interested in accuracy, we asked 3 stupid waterslide questions, not 1. — Dan https://t.co/F3pPnyWYzV
— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) September 14, 2022
“Oh f*ck all the way off, Outkick,” Le Batard tweeted. “You can’t always take the other side against me so reflexively that you take too seriously a question I posed while dressed as a professional wrestler. And, if you are interested in accuracy, we asked 3 stupid waterslide questions, not 1. — Dan”
Le Batard’s Meadowlark Media and Clay Travis‘ Outkick are like oil and water, which was kind of the point when the former launched his company. After Le Batard left ESPN in early 2021, reports claimed he and John Skipper were building Meadowlark Media with a progressive, liberal-leaning angle as an answer to Outkick’s success in attracting a largely conservative audience.
[Outkick]
