For the fourth time in the last five years, the Buffalo Bills were eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs, and much of that is the direct result of the four turnovers that Josh Allen provided to the Denver Broncos. Rather than blame their star quarterback, however, the Bills’ upper brass decided to fire their head coach of nine years, Sean McDermott, and promote the general manager who was responsible for their depleted roster, Brandon Beane, to president of football operations.
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To make the scapegoating even worse, several members of the media have taken a friendly approach to criticizing Allen’s performance. ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky recently caught flak both online and on the Pat McAfee Show for suggesting that the Bills’ offensive linemen should have done a better job at recovering Allen’s fumbles, while another ESPN analyst and former NFL player, Chase Daniel, suggested that fans should “forget all the turnovers” while critiquing one of Allen’s throws.
Suffice to say, the public has grown tired of the favoritism and the obvious slants that come with reports on Allen, and so too has Nick Wright, who is now calling out all of the double standards that are happening in the press. “He’s the only guy in the league that when they win, he’s an all-time legend. And when they lose, even when it’s because of his mistakes, it’s gotta be someone else’s fault,” Wright exclaimed during the latest installment of his self-titled show.
“Blaming McDermott, and Brandon Beane and Brandin Cooks, and the poor left guard who didn’t fall on Allen’s fumble? Josh Allen is more of a realist about what happened than his media sycophants. Josh Allen is in tears. You know why? He is their leader, he is the reason they are there, and he blew it.”
Much like every other fan of professional football, Wright would be much more willing to excuse Allen’s performance and shift his attention towards the remaining teams in the playoffs if it weren’t for the fact that he has to “Listen to people, the day after it happens, still say ‘No one’s ever played the position better.'” According to the longstanding FS1 personality, that’s enough to frustrate someone to the point of exclaiming, “Are you f**king kidding me?”
Simply put, it’s time to raise our standards for criticism, and that goes for both the Associated Press and fans online. Many often pose the question of whether or not other quarterbacks, such as Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hurts, would be afforded this same kind of courtesy from the media, and oftentimes the answer is no.
In a day and age where public perception is king, that has the potential to seriously burn networks like ESPN, which otherwise champion themselves as bastions of both sports journalism and diversity. There’s a reason why the concepts of journalistic integrity and unbiased reporting exist, and it’s to avoid these exact kinds of dilemmas, so unless ESPN wants to continue to lose even more viewers, they may want to correct their tone on this one.
