How do you know it’s a slow sports news day in New York City–especially on a day when the Knicks aren’t playing? Something like this is the talk of the town, at least as reported by MANSCAPED’s Apoorv Rastogi yesterday:
NFL superstar Jaxson Dart has come under fire for introducing Donald Trump during the latter’s New York City rally. As such, his teammate Abdul Carter, as well as former Fox Sports analyst Emmanuel Acho, have cornered Dart for showcasing his support for the President.
During the rally,…Dart introduced Donald Trump by saying, “What an honor, what a privilege it is to be here, and without further ado, I’m grateful, I’m honored…to introduce the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump.” . Acho has put the spotlight on the New York Giants quarterback when he called out the 23-year-old athlete for endorsing the POTUS…. “It’s time to have an uncomfortable conversation about what the hell is going on in New York. Jaxson Dart, the quarterback, supporting President Donald Trump?” the analyst noted, as per The Mirror.
AWFUL ANNOUNCING’s Matt Yoder had already piled on the day before with this additional post-mortem for how another representative of jockocrosy chose to fill in the news gap that morning:
(M)aybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the quiet of the offseason was interrupted by an appearance from quarterback Jaxson Dart introducing Donald Trump at a rally and getting called out by Abdul Carter. The two Giants rookies were drafted last year in the first round as foundational pieces for Big Blue on both sides of the ball. But at least politically, it doesn’t seem like the two see eye-to-eye.
On Tuesday morning, WFAN host Boomer Esiason addressed the situation. And given Esiason has been vocal about his support for Trump and even more vocal about athletes who choose to speak up in opposition to him, it wasn’t exactly a shock to see where he landed and whose side he took. “This was a real error on the part of Abdul Carter, not on the part of Jaxson Dart,” Esiason said. “Jaxson Dart was asked to introduce the President of the United States. How many people get an opportunity to do something like that, regardless of who the president is. You may have hated Barack Obama, you may have hated Joe Biden. And some guys didn’t want to go to the White House because they didn’t like those presidents, just like other guys didn’t want to go to the White House because they didn’t like President Trump.”
As even Yoder had expressed, the actual instigator had promptly owned up to the errors of his ways shortly after the realization of what his youthful naivete may have caused:
Carter issued another post that said he and Dart were good and had a conversation as men. But as you might expect, the media firestorm around the appearance, the post, and the allure of Donald Trump dividing the Giants locker room is simply too irresistible to ignore.
Despite this attempted capitulation yesterdau another morning loudmouth in a New York satellite city felt compelled to extend the lifecycle, as Yoder’s employer naturally amplified in a Facebook sh-tpost that dropped this morning:
Dan Le Batard thinks the New York media, known for its intense scrutiny and ferocious opinions, is failing to meet the moment in asking an NFL starting quarterback about his decision to stand alongside a divisive political figure.
“The New York media market has always been notoriously tough. The tabloids still somehow matter in that city even though newspapers are dying all over the place,” said Le Batard on Wednesday’s edition of his show. “Do you not believe that the New York media has a responsibility to ask difficult questions of Jaxson Dart and let us hear what you believe?
“If you want to be the quarterback who introduces Trump during this time, please expound on your thoughts. Tell us, I want him put in a position to sound educated or uneducated with the decision that he just made. He deserves to be made uncomfortable if he’s going to support this particular presidency during a deeply uncomfortable time.
“Why not ask the quarterback of the New York Giants, ‘Hey, how do you feel about Donald Trump going after an attack on freedom and democracy? How do you feel about Iran? How do you feel about these things? Tell us, Jaxson. You’re up. You’ve made yourself a political person. Just tell us what you think.’”
LeBatard was a lot more tolerable–and had a lot more impact–when he was an ESPN personality and was balanced out by the presence of Stugotz and his father. Esiason was a lot more significant when he was a New York quarterback himself, on the downside of a mediocre career by the time he got the chance to lead his hometown Jets to a couple more ignominious losing seasons. Dart’s still relatively new at all of this after a college career that ended in Oxford, Mississippi–which the last time I checked had a pretty strong bent toward supporting the farter-in-chief.
It’s downright unfortunate on a number of fronts that this rally occurred in the height of the Jints’ off-season., Had it occurred in, say, October it would have had more consequences as an actual election drew nigh. But at least Dart would have been in the news cycle for his actual on-field performance as well. Knowing Giants’ fans as intimately as I do–since I’m one myself–if Dart was actually winning games no true fan would give a rat’s ass if he were returning Trump’s gushing approval of his “tree-trunk like legs” with actual French kisses. In contrast, were he continuing to deliver the same sort of losses he engineered as a rookie it shouldn’t matter if he were coming out for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose obsession with his bulging quadricepts might at least prompt a few less disgusting images.
No one hired Jaxxon Dart to express any political opinions whatsoever, and were that truly an issue the Giants might have chosen to find someone who wasn’t schooled in the Deep South, actual football potential notwithstanding. No one should care what the esteemed political pundit Norman Esiason thinks one way or the other either. He inherited a time slot once occupied by Don Imus, so the fact he’s not insulting the sexualities of female Rutgers basketball players should be seen as a baby step in the right direction.
And Le Betard might want to ask those unnecessary questions of his own city’s quarterback savoir Malik Willis, who most recently spent time in Nashville, Tennessee and Auburn, Alabama and quarterbacked an overachieving school founded by the disgraced Reverend Jerry Falwell. Think there’s a halfway decent chance he might have picked up an unpopular opine or two of his own? That probably should actually matter equally as little as Dart’s in the long run?
Dart doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for how he chooses to act in his private life in May–certainly not anyone in New York media. They’re far too busy fanboing over AOC and Mayor Mumdami anyhoo and depending upon who employs them they’re either cheering or obsessing–which is indeed THEIR job. I’d to think they might be open to letting him do his.
Courage…
