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Stephen A Smith is Getting Killed for Mocking Lane Johnson’s Retirement
Published:
Video clip:
“A dude that has been in the league forever, sits back and says, ‘I need to focus on my mental health’ and as an offensive tackle, lord you know it’s bad. There’s no way. (If) you’re undefeated, you’re winning football games, you’re thriving, everybody’s got Super Bowl in their sights, you walk away. You walk away because it’s a very, very bad situation and it doesn’t look to be getting any better and this brother says ‘hey, my life matters, it’s time, I’m gonna call it quits. My mental health.'”
I’m sure a decent amount of people are thinking what Screamin’ A is thinking, that Lane Johnson quit on the Eagles. That he wouldn’t have walked if the Birds were 4-0. Stephen A. just happens to have the largest platform.
The Eagles losing their best right tackle of all time just four games into the season isn’t good. Without a doubt. It would have been better for Lane to retire before the season or after the season instead of putting the team in a tough spot.
But insinuating that the guy quit or gave up just doesn’t hold verifiable weight, because nobody other than Lane Johnson knows what Lane Johnson is dealing with. Any judgment we cast is done with incomplete information. That’s why mental health is such a taboo subject, and hard to broach, because it’s impossible for any of us to know if someone is using mental health as a generic cop out, or whether they’re truly going through some shit. You’d think that if we’re trying to be decent human beings, we’d couch our skepticism, defer to the latter, and take what people tell us at face value, otherwise we’re accusing them of deceit.
Think about the Za’Darius Smith situation.
He up and left after four games. Some people criticized that, accusing him of bailing on the Eagles. Then we learned, one year later, that he lost his grandmother, mother, and father in succession. Two parents and a grandparent died. That changes the way you look at your life, your career, your family, and the time you have on this floating space rock.
(Anyway, here’s another clip that I don’t think really changes what Stephen A said in the previous clip) –
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com