You hear a lot about mental health these days.

Used to be that you were deemed a pussy for talking about depression or anxiety, because human beings were supposed to “man up” and bottle their emotions and get on with life. That’s how an older generation of Americans generally looks at it, but these days it’s much less taboo, and generally accepted when people talk openly about their struggles.

Case in point, Dak Prescott, who recently lost his brother to suicide and talked about the anxiety and depression he felt when combining his brother’s death with the isolation and quarantine aspect of COVID-19.

That resulted in Skip Bayless more or less saying that Dak needs to get over it because he’s the Cowboys’ quarterback:

“I’m gonna ask our audience to go ahead condemn me if you choose, as cold blooded and insensitive on this issue..”

Obviously when you start out with that line, you know you’re probably going to get ripped. And are we even sure that the other dudes in the locker room won’t see him as a leader because he told everybody that he was struggling? That might have the exact opposite effect, and cause his teammates to rally around their quarterback, because they like the guy and have his back.

Skip’s take just doesn’t fly like it used to. It’s more acceptable for men (and women) to talk about mental health these days.

That’s not to say that everybody who is having a bad day at work is now suffering from “depression,” and we should take care as not to cheapen the word by using it liberally, because it’s somewhat dismissive to people who actually do have diagnosed disorders and take medication and/or seek treatment from healthcare professionals. You’re free to believe that speaking about these issues makes you soft, but the general attitude towards mental health has shifted in recent years, hence the backlash to what Skip said.