Shannon Sharpe returned to Undisputed on Wednesday to confront and confront co-host Skip Bayless over his tweet posted after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed and went into cardiac arrest on Monday Night Football.
Hamlin, 24, collapsed on the field during the first quarter of the Buffalo Bills’ Monday Night Football clash with the Cincinnati Bengals and received CPR for ten minutes before being taken to a local hospital.
The University of Pittsburgh graduate was resuscitated twice, once in the field and once at the hospital, where he remains in critical condition as doctors work to put him on ventilator-free breathing.
Sharpe explained his absence from Undisputed on Tuesday, saying: “There’s been a lot of speculation as to why I wasn’t here yesterday and I won’t go into speculation, conjecture or insinuation.
“But I will say this, watching that game on Monday night, what happened to Damar Hamlin struck me a little bit differently. As a brotherhood in the NFL, when injuries happen, we know that injuries are part of the game. I have seen men suffer ACL and Achilles tears.
“But I’ve never seen anyone have to revive and fight for their life in the field, so it felt a little different to me. I remember seeing my brother paralyzed on the field, temporarily, and he was able to regain his concentration. Skip tweeted something and while I don’t agree with the tweet, I hope Skip will delete it.”
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Fireworks to start Undisputed over Skip’s tweet pic.twitter.com/CnMBvgUPP3
— Awful announcement (@awfulanounce) January 4, 2023
Bayless defended her position and doubled down, reiterating that she stands by what she tweeted.
“I’m not going to shoot him down. I stand by what I tweeted.”
The 71-year-old sparked a social media frenzy Monday night with professional athletes from around the world including NFL star Sauce Gardner and NBA star Kyle Kuzma, Isaiah Thomas and Kendrick Perkins condemning his tweet.
No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game, but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the outcome of the regular season … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) January 3, 2023
Sharpe, widely considered one of the all-time great tight ends and a three-time Super Bowl champion, expressed his frustration with Bayless’ interruption.
“Let me finish, go ahead. I can’t even finish a monologue without you interrupting me.
“I didn’t want to get into a situation yesterday where Damar was the problem, we should have been talking about him and not get 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 me.
