The Loop
Skip Bayless flirts with worst take in sports history, can barely resist its intoxicating pull
To say Skip Bayless has had some notable bad takes over the years doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. Bayless's ENTIRE brand is a bad take—a non-stop deluge of ill-advised lines drawn in irrelevant sand and pointless hills died upon gruesomely. Bayless pretends he is always right and always wants to be, but the reality is exactly the opposite: Bayless lives to be wrong because being wrong is his livelihood. No one cares if you think LeBron James is good. LeBron James is good. But saying he isn't drives more clicks, more eyeballs and more stories like this. It's the longest con in sports, and this week we're falling for it all over again.
On Sunday afternoon, amid the approximately 6,000 competing takes he splattered on Twitter in hopes that one would be offensive enough to get noticed, Bayless began circling quite possibly the most baseless, indefensible take in sports history, turning a walk-off victory for the Kansas City Chiefs into a referendum on Patrick Mahomes' budding greatness (or lack thereof.) Trust us, you'll need to see this to believe it.
If you've spent anytime listening to Bayless run his mouth over the years, you know exactly what he's itching, salivating, DYINGGGGGG to say: Matt Moore, career backup, is a better quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs than 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes right now this very second. On Sunday afternoon, Bayless stared into the void. He stood at the edge. He heard its siren song. He so badly wanted to step off the edge. To cast off the mortal shackles and howl while falling forever into nothingness, "MATT MOORE DESERVES TO BE STARTING FOR THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFSSSSSS."
But then he saw his family. He remembered Shannon Sharpe's smiling face staring back at him from across the desk and his collection of shiny silk ascots flashed before his eyes. He realized that his time had not yet come—that some takes are so bad, you simply don't come back from them. So instead he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and settled on the next-best thing: Matt Moore is a better leader than Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes has lost his last two home games, after all. What other conclusion could possibly be true?
The rare show of restraint probably saved whatever remaining shred of credibility Bayless has left, but if Matt Moore goes out there and wins another one next week, there may be no saving Skip from himself.