Amid the outpouring of support for Damar Hamlin following the Bills safety’s scary collapse in last Monday’s game against the Bengals, Fox Sports host Skip Bayless garnered widespread scrutiny after posting a tone-deaf tweet in the immediate aftermath of Hamlin’s medical scare. On Sunday, it appears at least one of his Fox colleagues is still upset about Bayless’s words.
During Fox’s pregame show, former Super Bowl champion and current analyst Michael Strahan indirectly called out Bayless for his tweet. Though he never mentioned him by name, it appeared clear that Strahan took serious issue with how Bayless chose to speculate about how Hamlin’s situation might impact the NFL’s postseason picture, describing the situation as “inhumane.”
“You know, I’ve struggled with this in a lot of ways because it’s so much just about being an athlete and experiencing being on the field and being that close to guys, and then you see something happen to a young man like that. You don’t have to be a football player to understand how big this was,” Strahan said. “And you spoke about humanity. … There were things done here by someone here at this network that were inhumane.”
Bayless addressed his tweet the following day on Undisputed, though he refrained from directly offering an apology for his words.
“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,” Bayless wrote. He later followed that up by saying that nothing was more important than Hamlin’s health, and that he was sorry if his previous tweet was “misunderstood.”
“Nothing is more important than that young man’s health. That was the point of my last tweet,” said Bayless. “I’m sorry if that was misunderstood but his health is all that matters. Again, everything else is irrelevant. I prayed for him & will continue to.”
