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

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

Dwayne Haskins

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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