It’s been a rough few days for Doug Gottlieb, and deservedly so.
The popular sports media personality isn’t backing down, though.
In case you missed it, Gottlieb reacted the news of Andrew Luck’s retirement with a particularly woeful tweet. Basically, according to Gottlieb, Luck’s retirement is all about those damn millennials.
Gottlieb has faced immense backlash since firing off that stinker, with former NFL quarterback Troy Aikman among those leading the charge. But despite all the criticism, Gottlieb defended his take Sunday during an appearance on WEEI.
Here’s an excerpt of what Gottlieb had to say during his conversation with Rob Bradford and Jermaine Wiggins:
“Well I just think it’s a completely different mindset and anybody who has dealt with athletes — look I grew up, I was an athlete myself. My dad was a coach, my mother is a coach. And I’ve had the chance to cover the NFL and college football and college basketball and the NBA, and you ask people and they’ll say, ‘The athletes are different now than they used to be.’ From their political awareness to their brand awareness and just to the idea that, ‘I’m going to quit because it’s not fun to me anymore.’ Which I understand. I get it. Anybody who’s had a job in our business knows there’s times where it’s not fun. … It is supposed to, I think in your mind, be super fun to go to work and it’s just not.
“And look, I’ve never had chronic pain, so I don’t actually know what that’s like. But I look at the history of football and, for the most part, one of the things that makes football players different human beings than the rest of us is their ability to process the rigors of practice, the pain of a Monday morning after a Sunday afternoon and get up and go to work and do it again. And Andrew Luck is like, ‘Nah.’ Look, had he torn his Achilles tendon after the shoulder injury or whatever and the lacerated kidney, I kind of get it. But remember, he was telling everybody a week ago he was going to be fine, he was going to be back. But apparently, you go back a week ago in a preseason game and he said last night that — he just warmed up on the field — he knew it was going to be the last time he warmed up on the field. So he knew, like, kind of a week ago that he was feeling this way.”
Make of all that what you will.
A lot has been said about Luck since he announced his retirement Saturday night. However, no take is more electric than the one Bill Belichick dropped Monday afternoon.
