Shannon Sharpe clashes with Skip Bayless over Demar Hamlin tweet, explains absence from show
Shannon Sharpe returned to “Undisputed,” a day after he was a no-show, only to get frustrated with co-host Skip Bayless interrupting him over Bayless’ tweet with about Demar Hamlin.
“I can’t even get through a monologue without you interrupting me,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe started the show trying to explain his absence from the Tuesday show but a comment about Bayless’ controversial tweet had his co-host jumping in.
“Watching that game on Monday night, what happened to Damar Hamlin struck me different,” Sharpe began. “As a brotherhood in the NFL … I’ve seen guys suffer ACLs and Achilles tears, but never seen anybody have to be revived and fight for their life on the field.”
He pointed to his brother, Sterling Sharpe, being temporarily paralyzed due to an injury during his playing days.
“Skip treated something,” he continued. “Although I disagreed with the tweet – and, hopefully, Skip will take it down – but I didn’t want …
That’s when Bayless jumped in.
“Timeout,” Bayless interrupted. “I’m not going to take it down because I stand by what I tweeted.”
“Skip,” Sharpe responded, “let me finish.”
The former NFL star explained he didn’t want Monday’s show to be about the tweet when it should have been, he said, about Hamlin.
Bayless, on the other hand, said “no one had a problem with that tweet.”
On Tuesday, Bayless said the tweet was “misunderstood.”
Bayless tweeted Monday: “No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game – but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”
The backlash was immediate.
He clarified his comments the next day.
“Nothing is more important than that young man’s health,” he said. “That was the point of my last tweet.
“My first tweet as a journalist, I was simply putting myself in the heads of the NFL executives, including Roger Goodell, who was trying to figure out on the fly what to do here.”
Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.