Stephen A. Smith opens ‘First Take’ with full apology to Lane Johnson

· Yahoo Sports

Credit: 'First Take'

A day after insisting he’d been misconstrued, Stephen A. Smith opened Thursday’s First Take by saying something he rarely says on air, which is that he was wrong.

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Smith spent nearly four minutes at the top of the show apologizing to Lane Johnson and the Philadelphia Eagles for his comments Wednesday, when he made light of Johnson’s decision to retire four games into the season to focus on his mental health.

The 58-year-old Smith insisted ESPN didn’t mandate the mea culpa, credited Charlamagne Tha God, Michael Wilbon, Jay Glazer, and Kimberley A. Martin with setting him straight, and said his deepest regret was the damaging message his remarks may have sent to people who are struggling.

“Yesterday, I made news in regards to Lane Johnson retiring from the National Football League and departing from the Philadelphia Eagles. My intent was joking about the Eagles. Bottom line is this: It doesn’t matter what my intent was, it’s how it’s perceived. I messed up.

“And by the way, for those of you out there looking right now, this is not ESPN. This is not somebody forcing me to make an apology. Nobody did that. Nobody can do that. Here’s the reality of the situation: I was wrong. And when you’re an adult and you’re a man, you have to admit that you were wrong. I was wrong to Lane Johnson. I was wrong to the Philadelphia Eagles. I messed up because I made light of the issue of mental health when that was not my intent, but it wasn’t made clear enough.

“But in reflecting on it over the last 24 hours or so, I want to say something that’s incredibly, incredibly important. As much as I owe the apology to Lane Johnson and to the Philadelphia Eagles, it does not stop there. Mental health obviously is an incredibly serious issue. I know it. I went through it myself. I know a lot of people who have gone through it. I want to thank people like Charlamagne Tha God, like the great Jay Glazer, like Mike Wilbon, like Kimberly Martin, who told me in real time yesterday that I was coming across as making light of the situation. Thank goodness she was sitting here next to me because I was immediately alerted that that was how it was coming across.

“That was wrong, that was irresponsible on my part, but more importantly than that, especially speaking to my guy Jay Glazer this morning and Wilbon yesterday, there’s a lot of people in this country and in this world that are going through mental health issues. And the biggest regret that I have for all of this is the fact that it may have given people that wanted to open the door to seek help a reason to pause and hesitate and not do so. And I can’t emphasize enough how sorry I am about that because it is a real issue.

“And for everybody out there that’s struggling, that need help, please, please don’t look at me as somebody who’s trying to dissuade you from doing so. It takes courage for the Lane Johnsons of the world to speak up the way that he did to Jay Glazer in 2021 when he first revealed all that was going on with him. It takes courage for people out there struggling through mental health issues to come forward, to acknowledge that they are really struggling and that they need help. And for me, although it was not my intent to come across as making light of that, the reality is my biggest regret.

“I do, between this show and other shows, I do over 950 hours of live content a year. I’ve made mistakes before. I apologize. I’m making mistakes now. I’m going to apologize. If I do it in the future, I’ll apologize again. But the bigger issue is to make sure to bring attention to the fact that mental health is a real, real thing. And over the last 24 hours, with the inordinate amount of people that have spoken to me that reminded me of my struggles and the courage it takes to come forward and to acknowledge, ‘I really, really need help,’ it’s made me better.

“It’s made Jay Glazer better. It’s made a plethora of people throughout this nation and throughout this world better, and I don’t want to play a role in any way in persuading anybody from coming forward and acknowledging that they need all the help that they can get. I want to embrace that, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson said it best. I should be one of the many people out there willing to help, not in any way coming across as somebody who would dissuade somebody from going out there and seeking the help that they deserve.

“So on that note, I apologize. I need to do better. And I will, and that’s what I wanted to say. I want to start off the show sincerely: my apologies.”

Johnson, 36, announced his retirement Tuesday after 14 seasons, all with the Eagles, saying in a statement that it was critical he focus on his mental health. He had been inactive for personal reasons in Philadelphia’s Week 4 loss to the Rams, and he had spoken openly during training camp about considering retirement and about his parents’ declining health.

Rather than do even a cursory amount of homework, the former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and reporter chalked Johnson’s decision up to the Eagles’ injury-ravaged start, badgered his co-hosts into confirming that Johnson had even mentioned his mental health, and then slipped into a mocking impression of the six-time Pro Bowler, sneering, “My mental health. My mental. Lord!”

Kimberley A. Martin finally cut in to tell him he was making light of the situation. Smith bristled, insisting he would never make light of mental health issues and was only taking aim at what he called the Eagles’ “trashy situation.”

Stephen A. Smith’s first attempt at an apology came later Wednesday on his SiriusXM show, and it didn’t go much better. He said he was sorry that “people misconstrued me minimizing mental health,” shared that he had leaned on therapy after his mother’s passing in 2017, and then went right back to riffing on the Eagles, calling his remarks about the stress of playing for them “facetious.”

On Wednesday, Smith ended his clarification by asking his co-hosts, “Did I stutter? Are we clear now?” On Thursday, he finally was.

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