People make mistakes. It’s nevertheless interesting, at times, to explore how mistakes are made — and how their aftermath is handled.
Colin Cowherd’s show made one of the most egregious mistakes in recent years on Tuesday. Not just Cowherd, who speaks extemporaneously (and for the most part very effectively) for several hours per day, but everyone whose fingerprints are on the audio and visual content.
Cowherd’s particular brand of over-the-top hot-takery, which lends itself to a wide range of contradictions that are brilliantly chronicled by @BackAftaThis on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, lends itself to broad, sweeping proclamations that inevitably are proven wrong by Cowherd’s own future words. And the broad, sweeping proclamation from Tuesday was supposed to be quarterbacks drafted in round one over the past decade who CAN’T win a Super Bowl.
Something got lost in the shuffle. Someone created a graphic that was too expansive, including players who have been retired for years (EJ Manuel, e.g.) and one who is deceased (i.e., Dwayne Haskins).
Making matters worse is that, when Cowherd started reading from among the 20 names on the graphic, he specifically said “Dwayne Haskins.” Cowherd said nothing about the graphic being incorrect.
Now, some might say Cowherd was simply being a good teammate and not calling out the control room for a blunder on the graphic. But, just when it seemed that Cowherd was going to stop himself to explain that Haskins is deceased, Cowherd pointed out a more glaring error on the graphic: “It says ‘CAN’ win Super Bowls. It’s ‘CAN’T.’ Can’t win Super Bowls.”
Then came the reaction. Not surprisingly, Cowherd was dragged on social media. The @BackAftaThis account pointed out that the mistake possibly flowed from Cowherd’s refusal to discuss death on the show, which increases the possibility that he doesn’t actually know who has and who hasn’t passed away.
Still, multiple others had their fingerprints on this one. Someone made the graphic. Someone saw the graphic. It apparently started as a list of all quarterbacks taken in round one since 2013, from which the names of Colin’s potential Super Bowl winners was removed. And the rest of the names stayed, from Manuel to Haskins to Johnny Manziel to Blake Bortles.
Next came the effort to fix it. And, no, there has yet to be an acknowledgement of the blunder. As noted by Barrett Sports Media, however, the hour-three repeat of the hour-one segment had the reference to Haskins scrubbed from the audio.
So they know they made a mistake. But they’ve done nothing to affirmatively admit the error. Maybe they will today. Or maybe Cowherd will just keep going, grateful for the extra attention and ambivalent about the criticism.
Indeed, Cowherd never seems to be deterred by a mistake. He would be a great cover corner. Get burned (or trip over your own two feet), and keep going.
Short memory. No memory. No acknowledgement. Shit happens. Off we go.
