When Stephen A. Smith made victim-blaming domestic violence comments while discussing Ray Rice in July, ESPN suspended him for a week. What do you think will happen this time?
On Thursday night, Smith and basketball analyst Tim Legler were tasked with providing one-liners while counting down the top 10 plays of the night on SportsCenter. When Norway's beautiful free-kick goal in the Women's World Cup was featured, the two couldn't help but note Germany's players turned their heads while defending against it.
“Those young ladies didn’t want to catch one in the grill," Legler said.
Smith, lost for anything worthwhile to say, dove into his candor phrase pouch of sexism. “They might not have wanted to mess their hair up," he eagerly followed.
He then repeated himself again: "They might not have wanted to mess their hair up." Just in case the viewers at home didn't realize how funny the joke was the first time around. This tweet basically sums up the state of things.
Things @espn is not OK with: calling the NFL commissioner a liar.
Things @espn is OK with: making sexist comments about female athletes
— Tim Froh (@TimFroh) June 12, 2015
Stephen A. Smith is the worst.
UPDATE -- 4:16 p.m.: ESPN spoke to Stephen A. Smith on Thursday night about his remarks. On Friday, he issued an apology on Twitter.
From ESPN (Re: Stephen A's World Cup joke): “We discussed this with Stephen A. last night and he understands the comments were wrong.”
— Cork Gaines (@CorkGaines) June 12, 2015
FOX Sports' Katie Nolan wasn't so quick to let Smith off the hook.