For a few minutes Wednesday, Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe actually produced some halfway compelling conversation before the focus eventually returned to another LeBron James discussion.
Bayless once again came under fire this week, this time for an arguably insensitive tweet Monday night after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field. Hamlin, who went into cardiac arrest on the field in Cincinnati, was transported to a hospital where he remains in critical condition.
The eagerly anticipated Bills-Bengals game was postponed and might not be rescheduled. That could potentially complicate the AFC standings and playoff race, as Bayless pointed out while Hamlin fought for his life Monday night.
Sharpe apparently took umbrage with his "Undisputed" co-host's misplacement of priorities. He even skipped (no pun intended) Tuesday's show, and Bayless (who eventually issued an attempted clarification tweet) was left to basically do the show by himself while also offering clarification for his original tweet.
Sharpe returned Wednesday, and as the show opened, he attempted to explain his thinking for bowing out Tuesday.
"There's been a lot of speculation about why I wasn't on air yesterday and I won't get into speculation, conjecture, innuendo, but I will say this: In watching that game Monday night, what happened to Damar Hamlin struck me a little different," Sharpe said on the FS1 broadcast of the show. "As a brotherhood in the NFL, when injuries happen, we know injuries are part of the game. I've seen guys suffer (torn) ACLs, an Achilles tear, but I've never seen anybody revived or have to fight for their life on the field. So it struck me a little differently because I remembered seeing my brother (Sterling Sharpe) paralyzed on the field temporarily, and he was able to regain focus.
"Skip tweeted something, and although I disagreed with the tweet, and (hoped) Skip would take it down, but I didn't want it yesterday -- "
It was at that point that Bayless couldn't help himself and felt the need to jump in during Sharpe's opening monologue, leading to an icy back-and-forth, transcribed in full below.
(You can watch the interaction here.)
Bayless: Timeout. I'm not going to take it down because I stand by what I tweeted, OK?
Sharpe: Skip, let me finish
Bayless: OK, all right.
Sharpe: Go ahead (throws pen down on table)
Bayless: No, you go.
Sharpe: Go ahead, let's go, Jen.
Bayless: OK.
Sharpe: I mean I can not even get through a monologue without you interrupting me. I was just going to bring up, Skip, I didn't want yesterday to have been a situation where Damar Hamlin was the issue -- we should have been talking about him and not getting into your tweet. That's what I was going to do, but you can't even let me finish my opening monologue without you interrupting.
Bayless: I was under the impression you weren't going to bring this up, because nobody here had a problem with that tweet.
Sharpe: Clearly the bosses want you to issue an explanation, so clearly somebody had a problem.
Bayless: No, they did not have -- nobody …
Sharpe: Let's go ahead, Jen
And apparently, that was that. Viewers hoping to catch rounds 2 or 3, who tuned in late, would have seen the two sharing a laugh after the 39,000th James debate or a way-too-involved discussion about the Cowboys' plan to deploy their starters in Week 18.
You know, the usual stuff.
