Skip Bayless tries to deflect blame for his tweet about Damar Hamlin which kicked up social media firestorm
Skip Bayless found himself in hot water over a tweet he sent regarding Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin's terrifying injury last night. Hamlin received CPR on the field for several minutes after going into cardiac arrest and was rushed to a hospital where he is in critical condition.
Bayless tweeted about what the NFL needs to do going forward. The game that was postponed featured two top AFC seeds battling for seeding in their penultimate games.
On Undisputed, which was without co-host Shannon Sharpe today, Bayless tried to explain himself:
"I was putting myself in the heads of the NFL executive starting with Roger Goodell, who are having to figure out on the fly what to do here. And I stated the glaringly obvious, which is that no doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of the game."
He continued:
"I made the point that this late in the season that with a game of this magnitude, it's very difficult to postpone it yet, the end of my tweet was all of which suddenly seems so irrelevant for the first time in the history of the NFL.
Bayless added:
"My point was, it was all rendered irrelevant by what was happening on the football field, in front of all those football players, those gladiators, those warriors, they were shaken to their foundations."
He continued, stating that nothing mattered more than Damar Hamlin's health:
"Nothing is more important than that young man's health. That was the point of my last tweet, I'm sorry if that was misunderstood, but his health is all that matters. Again, everything else is irrelevant. I prayed for him. And I will continue to pray for him."
He finished by saying:
"So now the NFL has done exactly the right thing. They have postponed. I have no idea how they're going to make this game up. And I don't care. All that matters now is that that young man who had his NFL life before him, remains in critical condition, in a Cincinnati hospital, all that matters."
Bayless' tweet caused a firestorm and got the controversial analyst in trouble online.
What happened to Damar Hamlin?
During Monday's game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals (two of the AFC's top seeds), Damar Hamlin made a tackle on Tee Higgins. He got up and tried to walk before collapsing to the floor.
Medical personnel rushed onto the field and began administering CPR to restart his heart, which took several minutes. He eventually had a pulse but was not breathing on his own as he was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he remains.