Michael Irvin erupts at Stephen A. Smith with sweat-soaked rant on Cowboys’ greatness
Stephen A. Smith’s job is, in many ways, to push buttons, and he arrived Monday at an entertainment and event center located near the Cowboys' AT&T Stadium ready to do just that. As it turned out, the star of ESPN’s “First Take” didn’t just get under the skin of the dozens of Dallas fans in attendance, but he also provoked quite the eruption from former Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin.
Now an NFL Network analyst, Irvin makes no pretense of disguising his loyalty to the organization he helped win three Super Bowls, but as Smith noted before the Cowboys hosted the Titans on “Monday Night Football,” the glory days in Dallas are long over and the team has fallen well behind some other NFL franchises.
That was too much to bear for Irvin, who quickly required some towels to help with the considerable sweat he worked up while shouting about how the Cowboys were set to “rightfully regain and take their proper spot among kings!”
Irvin began what rapidly turned into a rant by claiming that the “championship trophies” possessed by the Cowboys put them “right up there with the Patriots and the Steelers.” He stood up and pointed at Smith, shouting as the crowd cheered, “So when you go to history, let’s go into history! Don’t just go to your history, let’s go into the history!"
“First Take” co-analyst Max Kellerman then asked Irvin if Dak Prescott was the right quarterback to “make some history” with the Cowboys, to which the ex-player pointed to Dallas’s recent trade for former Raiders wide receiver Amari Cooper as the key to unlocking a bright future. “Can you really get an answer on Dak without giving him the weapons around him,” Irvin said. “I think that’s why Amari Cooper was a big deal.”
Turning to the audience and raising his voice, Irvin continued: “We needed to get Amari Cooper, and I think tonight, right here in Dallas, we see the dawn of a new day. The beginning of a new age, and a time when the Cowboys will rightfully regain and take their proper spot among kings!”
At this point, Irvin was standing and shouting, while being wiped down by a production assistant. “Do you hear me?!" he exclaimed. “Regain and take their proper spot among the kings!!”
Smith, not surprisingly, was also getting increasingly agitated, or at least acting that way for dramatic effect. “It is true that when you were a member of the Cowboys, and Jimmy Johnson came on board to coach this team,” he asked of Irvin, “is it true that Jimmy Johnson went to you, and you sat up there and said, ‘If the dawn of a new day is imminent, we need to get rid of this, and this and this'? So what happened to that philosophy?
“Y’all won two playoff games in 25 years, and you’re going to sit up here, sticking out your chest, and talk about, ‘It’s the dawn of a new day’?!” Smith shouted. To vigorous boos, he added, “Y’all ain’t nothing. You ain’t been nothing.”
Shaking his finger at Irvin, Smith got a laugh from the former Cowboy by saying, “Last time y’all were something, you had an Afro!”
However, he went right back to playing up the villain role for all it was worth, telling Irvin, “You’re a champion, walking around with rings, but these 'Boys ain’t won in 23 years and you’re sitting up here representing them. You should be ashamed of yourself!” Smith pointed to the crowd and yelled, “You should be ashamed of yourselves!”
Irvin, forehead glistening like Patrick Ewing in the fourth quarter of a playoff game against the Heat, countered that the youth of Cooper, Prescott and running back Ezekiel Elliott meant that the Cowboys had “10 good years” ahead of them, repeating the phrase, “Dawn of a new day.”
With Kellerman continuing to question Prescott’s ability to be a top quarterback, Irvin went back to frenzied mode, claiming that the third-year player “put up the greatest rookie season ever! Ever!” He added: “Dak Prescott is a big-time player!”
Finally, Irvin took note of what ESPN’s audience could see for some time, saying, “I’m sweating now. Why am I sweating? Is it that hot in here?”
To chants of “Mi-chael! Mi-chael!” he shouted, “I have taken over his show! 'Cause this is my city!”
Kellerman then brought up Cowboys Coach Jason Garrett, who has a 70-57 record in eight-plus years in Dallas, with two playoff appearances. “Is that a great coach?” Kellerman asked.
It was perhaps telling that the subject of the much-maligned coach elicited a far calmer response from Irvin. He said that Garrett “knows how to work with this group of guys,” adding, “Right now he has the young talent, and tonight is the beginning of that.”
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