Background:

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy brandished a sledgehammer during a Saturday night team meeting and smashed watermelons with it. This was a motivational tactic to get his team amped for a game against the Vikings that they ended up winning on the road. Nice victory for the previously stinky Cowboys.

Tuesday on Undisputed, alongside king jabroni Skip Bayless, Shannon Sharpe explained why McCarthy’s behavior was perhaps racist:

Hmm, okay. I think this is what we’d call a reach. Smashing watermelons is racist? Because watermelon has a negative connotation in regard to black culture? This is not a Fuzzy Zoeller/Tiger Woods type of situation.

I’m pretty sure Mike McCarthy, who is a 57-year-old white dude, was just channeling his inner Gallagher while looking for a way to motivate his shitty team. He smashed some fruit and his squad went out and actually won a game. Nobody on the team complained publicly, nor did they express their dissatisfaction through the media in an Alshon Jeffery/Josina Anderson type of way.

At worst, McCarthy is perhaps ignorant to the idea of microaggressions, i.e. he has no idea that what he’s doing might be regarded as insensitive. If he just picked another fruit, maybe a Papaya or an Apricot, then he would have been fine. But those don’t smash as well as a watermelon, which is big and juicy and creates a dramatic splatter when you drop the hammer on it.

Carry on.