ESPN's Michael Wilbon blasted the Washington Football Team on Wednesday, decrying their poor communication to Alex Smith as "shameful" behavior.
Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser each responded on their long-running television show "PTI" to comments Smith made earlier in the week in an interview with GQ, in which the 36-year-old quarterback claimed he "threw a wrench" in Washington's plans when he decided to return to football last summer.
"They didn't want me there," Smith told GQ, comments which he has since walked back through sources.
"This is shameful!" shouted Wilbon. "The Washington Football Team had better communicate better with him then to make sure there isn't resentment. The public relations, or as you like to say, the 'optics' of this, are just football at its worst. This is all the worst about football and the culture of football. We have so many people that like to talk about the values it builds and how it's the best team sport — this is the dark side of it."
"And you talk about the injuries people suffer and how they limp away or crawl away from the game," he said. "There's nothing but nobility about Alex Smith, and I like Ron Rivera from what I know of Ron Rivera, but Tony, this is shameful! If they didn't make it known, 'We are unsure about your ability, but we open our arms to you.'
"At this time, the place we are in the world, that he was made to feel that way — and I believe him — and the Washington Football Club, no matter who runs it, apparently, or is running it day to day, it can't get out of its own way for smelly behavior, or what is perceived as that by Alex Smith and then, connected to that, by me."
Wilbon went on to say he'd be embarrassed to call himself a Washingtonian: "I'd be embarrassed! There's lots of stuff out there about the Washington Football Team that's worse, that borders on illegal. This, Tony... they have to be better.
"Somebody has to say, in the NFL office, to the Washington Football Team representatives — executives, coaches, whoever the hell it is: 'You need to be better than this.' This is a man's life! He could have lost his life! I don't give a damn about who put him in the game. This is just awful behavior!"
"I could not disagree with you more," Kornheiser replied. "Alex Smith is not saying that he feels this way now. He's saying this is how he felt then, that he was not wanted. Then he went out and proved his worth and he got a chance. And you know this because I've told you this a thousand times, even now when he goes in the game, I hide my eyes. I'm afraid for him. Because of all the medical problems he has had."
"It seems to me totally reasonable that the Washington Football coaching staff felt that way then," Kornheiser continued. "But again what I would say to you is they put him in the game because they thought he could do it. He's 5-1 this year as a starter. He may not have been that good, but his team won when he was in there. They may not want him next year as their No. 1 guy, but I understand why they felt this way."
"I don't care about his future in Washington. That's irrelevant," Wilbon responded. "I care, again, about a team, a franchise, that is always involved in something untoward or seemingly so. Tony, I don't care if he feels that way now. If he felt that way then, why didn't they communicate with him better?
"Why couldn't they say to him... it apparently hasn't been said. Alex Smith is no dope. He's a bright man. Why wouldn't they go to him and say 'we are terrified here'? Communicate that. You just communicated it. You mean a whole building of football people in Reston, Virginia can't communicate that?"
