Good riddance to Max Kellerman. The ultimate Patriots troll is being reassigned from “First Take” to ESPN Radio, with a possible mid-afternoon TV show in the works.
That means it will be a lot easier to ignore him.
Now, as a “sports debater,” we can’t blame Kellerman for playing the role of carnival barker. We all do it, and nobody does it better than Stephen A. Smith, who reportedly forced Kellerman off “First Take.” But Kellerman’s delivery seemed especially forced. His hallmark moment came when he predicted Tom Brady would “fall off the cliff …” in August 2016.
Brady has won three more Super Bowls and another MVP since then.
But that wasn’t the only shallow anti-Brady take we heard from Kellerman. Following the 2019 AFC Championship — in which Brady led three straight touchdown drives to close out the contest — Kellerman proclaimed his performance was “lucky.” That foolishness led to a mini-revolt on the “First Take” set: Stephen A. said Kellerman’s Brady hate isn’t amusing; Damien Woody questioned how much longer Kellerman would ride his passé Brady schtick.
The answer was 19 months. Kellerman finally admitted he was wrong about Brady on OMF in August 2020.
“I should have never said bum and I apologized for that the next day because I was being glib, but I should have never have said bum, especially about someone like Tom Brady," he said. "But, I did believe in the cliff.
Bravo.
With the Patriots fading from championship relevancy, Kellerman has backed away from some of his absurdity. But it is fitting that his last Patriots take may have been his worst — or at least the most poorly articulated.
Earlier this month, Kellerman selected the Patriots as a “dark horse” Super Bowl contender. But the problem is, he kept confusing Cam Newton with Jameis Winston.
“A guy coming off a catastrophic injury who hadn’t played in a year,” Kellerman said in defense of the unnamed Patriots’ QB. “A guy playing for a team whose defense lost nine guys to defections because of Covid before the season started — whose practice facilities got shut down due to Covid. Bill Belichick couldn’t prepare, and Jameis couldn’t learn because no preseason, no practice. Then Jameis Winston got Covid, and they were still two plays away from 9-7.”
Wow. It’s telling those mishaps didn’t cause much of a stir. Kellerman lost credibility, and thus relevance, years ago.
Now he’s falling off the cliff, all the way down to the revolving carousal of ESPN Radio.
We’ll see if he rebounds as well as Brady.