"First Take" has become ESPN's bastion of bombastic, hyperbolic, and, at times, nonsensical rhetoric. From 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., talking heads Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith shout at and over one another about whatever sports topics are dominating the day, seemingly caught in some kind of endless Groundhog Day cycle of competition over who can make the most mind-bogglingly inflammatory comment and who's relegated to the purgatory that is only semi-ridiculousness.
Seemingly on a daily basis the pair produces some of the most far-fetched, direly ill-conceived takes on the NFL, NBA, MLB and every now and then, even the NHL, the American sports landscape has seen. They're the equivalent of your drunk cousin - you know the one, the one that shouts vulgar epithets at the television amid proclamations that if he were in charge, things with (insert beloved team name here) would be quite different - getting his own two hour slot on one of the biggest sports-centric stages in the world.
On Monday, Bayless and Smith's ESPN colleague, Robert Flores, took a pretty healthy shot at "First Take's" turgid and overblown approach to the recent "controversy" (term used very loosely here) regarding Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton's dancing in the end zone in celebration of his, this season quite frequent, touchdowns.
Check out the video for yourself, via @cjzero.
ESPN’s Robert Flores takes shot at First Take over Travis Kelce and Cam Newton pic.twitter.com/nKo5LB6pyB — CJ Fogler (@cjzero) November 30, 2015
And here's video of Bayless and Smith discussing Newton's extended celebration dance during a game against the Tennessee Titans.
To be fair here, Kelce certainly doesn't enjoy the same level of visibility of Newton, so part of the reason no one was talking about his dancing is, well, the fact that no one really talks about Kelce. He's a good player, but he's not the quarterback of the league's only remaining undefeated team.
Still, it was quite the pointed comment by Flores, not just for the content, but for the intended target. It will be interesting to see if ESPN pushes him to walk back his remarks.
What say you, football fans? Does Flores have a point?
