Jalen Hurts vs. Donald Trump vs. Lil' Wayne: Skip Bayless Eagles 'Insight' or 'Insult'?
It is being asserted that the reason Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts parted ways with Young Money Sports Agency on the way to his massive $255 million contract extension is because of an October 2020 photograph showing the agency's head, entertainer Lil' Wayne, posing with President Donald Trump.
We can't speak to the credibility of the assertion. But we can speak to the lack of credibility of the person behind the report, FS1's carnival-barker contrarian Skip Bayless.
Both Hurts and his agent, Nicole Lynn, broke from the agency. That much is so. But as Bayless tells his version of the tale? It's weird. It involves Donald Trump and Lil Wayne and - because Bayless is Bayless - it also very much involves Bayless.
“Wayne was crushed over these developments,” Bayless said in a rambling podcast. “Wayne loves Jalen Hurts as much or more than I do. ... His heart was hurt over this.”
In the next breath, however, Bayless admitted that he isn’t really sure why Hurts and Lynn left Wayne’s agency. But that did not stop him from plowing on with his "report.''
“There has been some speculation that I’m vaguely aware of that it had something, maybe a little something or a lot something, but something to do with the picture that was taken of Trump and Wayne, when Wayne went to talk to Trump about that $500 billion package that was aimed at creating jobs for the black community in October 2020,” Bayless said. "I don’t know much about politics. I am not political as my wife will tell you. I did not vote for Donald Trump.”
It doesn't take much insight into what makes Bayless tick to decipher part of this story. ...
-There is "speculation'' because Bayless speculated; that's not "vague.''
-"A little something'' vs. "a lot something'' is "something'' that ideally, a reporter would vet before announcing.
-There is no reason for the consumer to care who Bayless voted for, or what his wife thinks about it.
-And when Bayless adds of his friend the entertainer, “All I know for sure is that Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. (Lil Wayne) has as big and good a heart as any human I have ever known''?
That has nothing to do with the core of this potential news story, either.
Bayless went on to tout his football insight (“I’ve always been such a Jalen fan, predicting the day they drafted him in Philadelphia that he would change their life and change their culture''), went on to pretend he's a life-long Cowboys fan (he's not) and said that as a result of this conflict, while he used to root for Hurts, “That will no longer be the case.”
Again, there could be a story in here somewhere. Hurts may be revealed to be a student of politics, for instance (he'd be well within his right, just like the rest of us) or we may find out that the QB's agency change was made for any number of other reasons. But about the only think to come from Skip Bayless' effort here is that Skip Bayless wants you to know all about ... Skip Bayless.
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