Football

Stephen A. Smith: Dwayne Haskins ‘More of a runner than a thrower’

by Tom Orr
Ohio State football Dwayne Haskins 2019 NFL Draft New York Giants

Friday morning on ESPN’s… not particularly intellectually rigorous… morning show First Take, co-host Stephen A. Smith said something stupid.

On the whole, this is one of those “dog bites man” stories that happens so frequently that it barely merits mention.

First Take might as well be called Lead Paint Chips because the consumption of either one has the same effect on the human brain.

If you Google “Stephen A. Smith” and “wrong” you get more than 400,000 results, which raises questions about just how thoroughly Google has really indexed the internet.

Just to cite one recent example: Back in December, he analyzed a game between the Chargers and Chiefs by pointing to a key matchup between a guy who wouldn’t play, a guy who had been hurt all season, and a guy who had been released.

No one can consume enough information to be able to talk intelligently about every possible sport in depth.

Friday, Smith sought to prove that point again during a segment on the decision between drafting Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins or Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray.

On Haskins, he said, “I just find him to be more of a runner than a thrower.”

In Smith’s defense, he continued, “I could be wrong about that.” Ironically, that was the first part of the sentence he was correct about.

Lest you think Smith simply misspoke, he later doubled down on Twitter.

As anyone who spent the 2018 college football season even vaguely conscious knows, Haskins basically set the Ohio State and Big Ten passing record books on fire for four straight months.

He passed for 4,831 yards and 50 touchdowns, while rushing for 108 yards and four scores.

You know this. Everyone knows this.

Again, it’s not realistic to think that one person – even with a research staff – is going to be able to talk in great detail about the four major league sports, plus soccer, tennis, golf, whatever Olympic stuff is in season, and also college football and basketball.

The problem isn’t that Stephen A. Smith provided a less-intelligent answer than you would get by stopping any random five people in a Central Ohio grocery store on a Tuesday morning and asking them for a scouting report on Haskins.

The problem is that someone asked him the question and thought the interaction was worth sharing with the world. The problem is that he’s put on TV at all and asked to pontificate about subjects which he knows little or nothing about.

Because Smith is just one of a class of people paid to vomit out nonsense to hungover college kids and people trapped in doctors’ waiting rooms.

Sure, Colin Cowherd or Skip Bayless or Shannon Sharpe didn’t say this particular stupid thing. But they almost certainly said something almost as dumb this week, and will again next week.

But individually, they’re not the problem, either.

If you watch their shows – any of their shows, ever – you are the problem.

There is no reason, under any circumstances, to ever watch any talking head shows on ESPN, FS1, or any other sports network.

When you hear them talk about a subject you know a lot about – say, the Buckeyes – you know how utterly uninformed they are. So why would you assume they have a clue what they’re talking about when they discuss the NHL or MLB, or tennis, or anything else?

Ultimately, this entire class of talking heads knows that they’re charlatans. They may sound dumb, but they’re not stupid.

They’re happy to play Dopey, The Argumentative Clown on TV and pick up a paycheck for it as long as there are people out there willing to watch.

And ultimately, there’s only one thing that will make them go away. Change the channel.

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17 Responses

  1. Hmmmmm, a talking head that has no clue. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, sports talking heads. Wait! Maybe EVERY SINGLE TALKING HEAD ON EVERY SUBJECT ON TV are all clueless.

    Maybe.

  2. Is SAS Mark Mays illegitimate son?
    Just thinking out loud.

  4. SAS is an absolute moron like just about everyone on espn..it’s a shame how far downhill espn has gone over the last decade..like many others I only watch espn when they are broadcasting OSU games or another good cfb game…all the talking heads on there are either stupid, annoying or liberal and usually all the above..sad people get paid for that crap ..

  5. ESPN has become now a half baked PC cake that is frosted with sports. If he watched OSU at all, our O was most explosive against MD and then even more so against MI, when Haskins ran well and passed well. In the Rose Bowl, we Haskins feet resorted to PUR, MIN, and NE type games. Smith is another Paul FineBaum type water carrier, that actually doesn’t watch and analyse games, but sees the head lines and final scores and listens to what others say. Hence, I spend very, very little time with ESPN, except if I find them talking CFB or broadcasting a live game. Smith is nothing more than a visual embarrassment of that.

  6. Stephen A.(the A stands for Asshole) is unequivocally an absolute idiotic moron. Had to use those adjectives instead of what I really think of his “highass.
    My 8 year old grandson, JJ(for Jacob Johnathan, he’s named after me and his great grandfathers) knows 20 times more about sports than Stephen, “The Great One” does. Sorry JJ for comparing you to that imbecilic moron. I watch ESPN to watch TOSU Buckeyes, not even college game days biased moronic idiots.

  7. I only watch Espn when the Buckeyes’ games are being broadcast on the network. I don’t watch it otherwise. That being said, I still know that S.A.S. is a blowhard and not an expert on any sporting subject. He simply likes to hear himself talk a la Skip B. Take it with a grain of salt fellas. S.A.S. is clueless.

  9. Not so fast my friend – S.ASsy undoubtedly knows that the new world of entertainment – particularly related to popularity, which in many cases equates to revenue – runs on a new metric called ‘Mentions.” Saying something absolutely absurd and getting a ton of response to the absurdity gets you mentions. There’s even a “passion” score associated with mentions. So, S.ASsy scored a double. We talk about his idiocy and he gets a mention – we talk about it a lot and he gets a bump by a good p (ass) ion score. So, we can’t win by calling him out – we just might have got him extended for another season or two.

  10. Some people are intelligent enough not to talk about things they know absolutely nothing about. Then there is Stephen A. Smith.

  11. And there-in was the problem with the Heisman voters – they all just listened to the talking heads to make their decisions between Murray and Tua without ever looking into Haskins or the B10 records he DEMOLISHED. What they SHOULD have been investigating is where those talking heads came from and they would have found out that they had just been up their own butts licking their tonsils or under Mark Allen Emmert’s desk – no I won’t go there …. yet

    BTW Tom, I am still laughing about the Lead Paint Chips. Great article!

  12. In Smith’s defense, Dwayne DID run for a first down once.

  14. Maybe he got him confused with JT Barrett. Haskins running ability is average and his throwing ability is off charts. Smith is an idiot.

  16. He proves he’s an ass every time he opens his mouth.

  17. Stephen A. Smith said his comment about Dwayne Haskins was “an eye test thing.” I guess he meant he’s in desperate need of a professional eye exam. Yes, he’s just one “stellar” (I don’t mean that in a good way) example of epidemic disease that 24/7 news and sports has given to us: Diarrhea of the mouth.
    Smith is one of those guys who wakes up every morning, opens his mouth and thinks, “I can’t wait to hear what I’ve got to say.”
    And yes, listening to the inane talk shows on ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 83 1/2, and their ilk is as productive as beating one’s head against a concrete wall – running at it at full speed. Never in the history of the world has so much been said by so many – about so little!

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