UPDATED 1/4/23 10:00 a.m. ET:During Wednesday’s episode of Undisputed, Shannon Sharpe said he “wouldn’t get into speculation” regarding why he wasn’t on Tuesday’s episode but did go on to say that he “disagreed with” Bayless’ controversial Damar Hamlin tweet.
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Shannon Sharpe was absent from Tuesday’s episode of FS1’s Undisputed after co-host Skip Bayless’ reaction to Damar Hamlin’s hospitalization, according to TMZ.
The outlet reports Sharpe skipped today’s show because he was “upset” with Skip’s tweets, which Bayless posted shortly after Buffalo Bills Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during Monday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Shannon also told the network he “doesn’t know if he will return to work on Wednesday.”
Bayless sparked backlash by questioning whether the NFL was considering cancelling the game due to the situation, which has since left Hamlin at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in critical condition.
“No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game—but how?” Bayless wrote. “This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome…which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”
Bayless opened Tuesday’s show with a monologue in which he apologized for how his tweet came across.
“I apologize for what we’re going to set out to do here today, if it offends anyone, because we’re gonna try to do the show pretty much as we usually do the show. I’ll admit up front, I’m still shook up by what happened last night to Damar Hamlin,” the 71-year-old said. “In fact, I’m still wrecked. In fact, I’m not sure I’m capable of doing this show today. After barely sleeping on it last night, I decided to give it a try.”
He continued, “We wrestled through much of the night whether to even do a show today because it felt like in our mind, we almost can’t win with this. Because the last thing we want to try to do is come off as insensitive to what this young man is going through in a life-or-death situation. … As this show goes on, we’re going to try and talk about a little bit of sports, but we’re going to continue to talk about what happened to this young man last night and try to sort back through it with help from you and the audience.”
Watch Bayless’ opening monologue below.
