FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith reacts to Cardinals’ Gannon apologizes to Demercado for sideline spat

FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith reacts to Cardinals’ Gannon apologizes to Demercado for sideline spat

Welcome back to First Take. Hello. We have updated the list for one Stephen A. Smith. Okay. So, now we have a modified as as it is fluid. So, now it’s fully fluid into the next block. Uh Stephen A’s list. Top five teams. Here we go. Lions, Bills, Colts, Eagles, Bucks. I still would move the Eagles up above the Colts, but it can’t be perfect. Are we happy with this list now? It’s modified. I am I even I can be correct. Yeah, even I needed the correction. Y’all got me today. I had Correct. I had brain fog. I completely forgot the random loss. It’s on me. I completely forgot. So, thank y’all for very much. Leave it to y’all to get me. Leave it to YouTube. The best. What has happened to you today? Have you been hanging out? Did you wake up with Ky? You understand? I don’t mean I don’t mean it like that. I’m talking about on the radio. I’m talking about the radio. Listen to the show. She was listen. Let’s go to the Cardinals now. Cardinals head coach Jonathan Ganon catching some heat for the way he responded to Amari De Marcado’s mistake on Sunday. You could see him kind of going at him. This is actually a fan video that caught this on camera. And so he got right back up in his running back’s face, kind of smacked him before walking away. But yesterday, Ganon did show some remorse for his actions. Listen to this. I woke up this morning and um didn’t feel great about it, honestly. And um so in the team meeting, I addressed it. I apologized to Omar. I apologized to the team. Um, and I just told him I kind of let the the moment of what happened get the better of me there. It’s not really who I am, who I want to be. And I told the guys that today. Um, so it’s a mistake by me and it’s just like everybody in there, everybody made some type of mistake yesterday. Uh, which is, you know, culminates to why we didn’t win the game. Uh, and we can’t let it happen moving forward. All right. Um, the video is not great. Uh, he did address it. He did say sorry. And so I feel like we do this every week now. Like someone’s making a mistake on Sunday with heightened emotions and then we’re addressing it. But nonetheless, we have to. What did you make of his apology and the video? Stephen A. Smith. Well, first of all, you don’t put your hands on you don’t put your hands on anybody. Um because obviously had de Marcado put his hands on the coach, it would have been a different it would have been a different animal and there would have been severe repercussions as it should have been if he were to do something like that to his coach. It also shows the importance of people, you know, knowing how to conduct yourself when you’re in a position of authority because clearly you felt that you could get away with that even in the moment because you were in a position of authority is inexcusable. Uh but props to him for owning it. apologizing for it, speaking to it publicly. What I will say is this though, it also speaks to the level of pressure uh coaches feel. This is the National Football League and you see these guys losing three weeks in a row on a field goal to end the game or whatever. You could lose your job for that. And so, you know, again, there’s no excuse for what he did. And certainly, I’m not giving, you know, I’m not I’m not absolving him from that culpability at all. But I also think it’s important to use this to highlight that the players aren’t the only ones with their jobs on the line because we see people losing their jobs all the time. And if you had a comfort level with your job, with your tenure or what have you, perhaps you would have acted a bit differently. It just shows it’s an illustration of the kind of pressure that comes with the responsibility that he has. Again, no excuse, you got to handle it. Otherwise, you don’t belong in that position. But it does highlight that level of pressure. Oh, there’s no question that he’s feeling the pressure. It’s his third year. The first two were losing seasons and through the first five games, he’s got a losing record. And oh, by the way, you just lost to the winless Tennessee Titans, starting a rookie quarterback on the road who was down double digits in the fourth quarter, right? So, not great. Coaches are in an unenviable position. God bless the men that do it. I would never want to have that job. That said, you have to have a certain level of professionalism and a certain level of decorum. And when I heard that apology, I had to ask myself, is Jonathan Ganon sorry for what he did or is he sorry he got caught? Because when you hear him explain the situation and apologize the day after, he conflated what he did to the mistakes his players made on the field. And let’s be clear about one thing, the nature of those mistakes is not the same. Amari de Marcato dropping the ball before the inline. That’s something that we see seemingly every week in the National Football League, which is also inexcusable. It’s inexcusable, but it’s not the same thing as putting your hands on another grown man. That’s right. There’s a certain level of professionalism that you have to conduct yourself with when you’re a part of the NFL. It is a privilege, not a right, to be a part of our game. And Jonathan Ganon violated that with how he undressed Amari De Marcado on that sideline on Sunday. Yeah. I mean, props to Demar Carter the way he handled it. Like he he he mean I’ll be honest, I’ve been very heated on sidelines with players and coach. You put your hands on me, it may go, you know, he controlled. It may go bad for you, coach. Yeah. Yeah. And so I mean, tip of the cap to him. I do think the the apology was authentic from G. I was with uh uh Jay Mack this morning on Get Up who who he was on his coaching staff and knew him and said, you know, from his experience with him, he would he would tend to lean that way as well. Look, we’re we’re in a profession and it is, you know, we don’t have like we don’t have HR departments, right? Dominique Foxward said that on the sideline. There are there are conversations that are had there is no excuse to ever put your hands on somebody from a coach to a player. We I’ve had coaches fight each other, players fight each other, but you don’t put your hands on a player. I I appreciate the apology. Whatever he has to do to earn the trust back of his players, he has to now work for that because again, there’s never a reason to do that. It could have gotten a lot worse. Thank God it didn’t. And and they’re at the place hopefully he and De Marcado work it out and and uh and have conversations privately about that. I I felt bad for De Marcado watching that video. I did feel bad for him and and I know he apologized. I didn’t love the end of the apology either, but hopefully these two can work out some way to to move forward. And it’s not going to come from way of wins. I don’t know what’s going on that Cardinal schedule, but it is tough. He don’t get the benefit of the doubt the rest of the way. I don’t think he’s earned it. Oh, scared. You scared. Scare money don’t make money. Well, I’m not I’m not betting money. Okay, that’s what I need to hear. That’s all I need to hear. I just like you like money. I’m not doing a mess up on my dollars. But I’m I’m telling you right now, here’s the thing. You hope when it comes to Trevor Lawrence, you have aspirations because you saw the brother coming out of Clemson, right? You know what he’s capable of doing. Got the right size, arm strength. you know, he ain’t looking over offensive or incoming defensive lineman. He can see over the defense to fling the football football. He can make all the requisite throws, etc., etc. But the fact that he has been so unproductive, right, over the LA over the last couple of seasons is alarming. Sent in his fifth season, he’s one and one in the playoffs. Been in the playoffs one time. You expect more from him, you know, and you haven’t seen it. And you found yourself asking why. Now, if you’re the ownership, you can’t really knock them for giving them the 55 million they gave them because you’re looking at look at the quarterbacks out there. I mean, everybody’s getting paid around that money. What you going to do with it? I mean, Tampa hit the jackpot because they got Baker Mayfield for like 33. Okay. So, but that’s an aberration. You know, you didn’t expect that. So, with Trevor Lawrence being the number one overall pick, the hope and the expectations that you’ve put on them, you’re looking at it from that standpoint, but this is his fifth year CC. This is his fourth head coach. So, I’m not putting all I’m not putting all the blame on him. Just like I talk about with Caleb Williams, in 18 months, the brother had three head co has head coaches and four different offensive coordinators. That’s that’s that’s an anomaly. That ain’t supposed to happen. In the case of of Trevor Lawrence, this ain’t supposed to be his fourth head coach in five years. But he also has something to do with that because when you say you can’t get right, they would talk about head coaches couldn’t get him right to a certain degree. So the word trust is strong. I’m not going to say that. But I will say, you know what, he has the potential. And that’s the operative word to use, potential, because you look at his physical gifts and you don’t see anything lacking. But you got to get on the field and get it done. Last night he did, but can that continue? Now listen, he’s a good quarterback, but I know CC will agree with me. You’re trying to march down the field and score a touchdown at the end of the game. You’re chewing up 30 seconds just to run around and gain six yards. Sometimes the decision making is a little bit frustrating. No, that’s a lot. That’s a lot. Frustrating. That’s a lot. They took a sack after that play where they had to use their last timeout. Come on. Boneheaded plays. That boneheaded plays, but it keeps happening. Trevor Lawrence in the fourth quarter, bottom 10 in QBR, zero pass touchdowns, two picks despite his team being top five in time spent leading in the fourth quarter. Just inexcusable mistakes. Last night you mentioned the delay of game penalties. Yeah. I I mean you talk about the San Francisco 49ers game, the final drive. The guy slides in out of bounds when he should have slid inbounds to keep the clock running because San Francisco didn’t have any timeouts. How about the two picks that he threw against the Cincinnati Bengals, one of which was in a goal to go situation, right? Last night ends up throwing a fourth quarter pick. I mean, you can go on and on. The Houston Texans game, a fourth quarter pick when their offense isn’t doing anything. There are just mistakes after mistakes after mistakes last night was was listening. What kind the goal line the league leads the league in fumbles since he came into the So why is Jacksonville in this situation then? Because the final drive of that game was a microcosm of Trevor Lawrence’s career. It’s the roller coaster. You got the lowest of lows. It starts out low, but then you get the highest of highs. the throw to Brian Thomas Jr. dropping in the bucket. Troy Aman went as far as to compare it to Eli Manning’s throw to Mario Manningham in Super Bowl 46, which I happen to be a part of. Then he throws a rope on an out to Demi Brown. Those are the things that keep you coming back, like hitting that one golf shot on the course when you’re a weekend hacker. It’s the one play that keeps you coming back. But the problem that I have with Trevor Lawrence and why I can’t go to the place of trusting the Jacksonville Jaguars is because if I can’t depend on my quarterback to be a stabilizing force within my team, if my quarterback at times throughout the game is something that the rest of the guys on my team have to overcome in addition to the opponent, then that’s why I can’t trust the Jackson. I think and look, he has made I’m not trying to I’m trying to absolve some of the things that he’s done from a process perspective. However, he’s being asked to do a ton now from Cohen. Check with me. Understand at the line of scrimmage what needs to happen. That process takes time to speed up. We don’t have a ton of time in the in their preseason to get this thing figured out. I think part of that is why he makes the errors he makes, but he will figure that part out. And I think I think Cohen of all he is a tough-minded coach, bro. He’s not going to give up any ground. He’s going to force Trevor Lawrence to grow. I think it’ll be better for both of them. I just want I just want my wife to one day love me like you two love Trevor Lawrence. That’s all. Us too. I didn’t sit up there say I believe in him. I want my wife upre. I know she does. Okay. Listen. Also Trevor Lawrence right now he’s 21st in the NFL in QBR. I mean he he’s winning games but he ain’t killing it. There’s a long way to go. The difference they went and inspired

FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith reacts to Cardinals’ Gannon apologizes to Demercado for sideline spat