Sha-Maria Law: ESPN sacrificed Rachel Nichols to honor George Floyd, the Alphabet Mafia, and America’s cultural insurrectionists



ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro is engaged in a prolonged war with the Taliban, commonly referred to in sports media circles as the "BLM-LGBTQ+ Alphabet Mafia."

Wednesday, under the tenets of Sha-Maria Law, the Alphabet Mafia beheaded NBA broadcaster Rachel Nichols for private disobedience of identity politics guidelines. ESPN removed Nichols from its NBA coverage and canceled her show, "The Jump." With a year left on her contract, according to reports, Nichols will no longer appear on the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

A year ago, Nichols, a white Jewish woman, gossiped with a male member of her tribe about ESPN management handing black colleague Maria Taylor a job that had been contractually promised to Nichols. Unbeknownst to Nichols, her comments were accidently recorded by a camera in her Orlando hotel room and subsequently shared with leadership of a Taliban cell headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut.

Because Nichols made these inconsequential comments during the summer of 2020, the first holy holiday celebrating the death of career criminal St. George Floyd, the Alphabet Mafia placed a bounty on Nichols' career at ESPN. Working with Taylor, the Alphabet Mafia newspaper of record, the New York Times, smeared Nichols as a bigot, forcing Pitaro to execute Nichols.

Some critics are comparing Pitaro to U.S. President Joe Biden, saying Pitaro's submission to the sports media Taliban is analogous to Biden's catastrophic Afghanistan exit. The New York Post's influential media critic Andrew Marchand published a column Wednesday night blaming Pitaro for fumbling the Nichols-Taylor dispute.

"In the history of sports media mismanagement, the way ESPN handled Rachel Nichols' situation may not be the worst, but it can make a case," Marchand wrote. "The fiasco was the result of embarrassing, indecisive management from ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro on down. More than a year ago, ESPN did not do anything of substance about Nichols' comments when they first found out about them. Nothing. Nada."

It's a fair take. However, I disagree. I am far more sympathetic to Pitaro's plight.

Full disclosure, ESPN rehired me in 2013 to found a website dedicated to covering the intersection of sports, race, and culture. Unfortunately, my black skin did not compensate for my woke shortcomings, my faith-based conservative values, and my toxic masculinity. I was a frequent target of Deadspin's attack. ESPN fired me in 2015. Six years ago, I was Rachel Nichols, a sacrifice to the Alphabet Mafia.

Pitaro inherited the Alphabet War from his predecessor, former ESPN president John Skipper. From 2012 through 2017, Skipper surrendered complete control of the network to the terror group Deadspin and its infamous warlord Nick Denton, the Osama bin Laden of the Alphabet Mafia. In mid-2017, I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal explaining the successful insurrection Deadspin pulled off in the Disney capital of Kabul, Connecticut. Deadspin's insurrection was quite similar to the events on January 6 at the Capitol. ESPN security opened doors and welcomed insurrectionists onto its campus. Many ESPN employees worked in a clandestine manner with Deadspin Proud Boys Tommy Craggs, Tim Marchman, A.J. Daulerio, and single token Alphabet nationalist Greg Howard.

Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, used Deadspin to bully ESPN into adopting the identity politics agenda. For years, Deadspin attacked ESPN executives relentlessly, exposing embarrassing details about the sexual malfeasance of the network's executives and personalities. Fear of being a target of a Deadspin "investigative" story terrified ESPN leadership, especially Skipper. In 2018, Skipper was forced to resign when it became public that someone was using his cocaine addiction in an alleged extortion plot.

Skipper and ESPN's longtime head of human resources and Alphabet Mafia soldier Paul Richardson negotiated a secret peace agreement with Deadspin. The network agreed to prioritize identity above talent and merit in its on- and off-air decision-making.

In front of the camera, sexual identity, skin color, and gender drove ESPN to form the worst Monday Night Football booth in the history of the iconic show, pairing legendary NFL coach Jon Gruden with solid baseball play-by-play man Sean McDonough and talented sideline reporter Lisa Salters. During the broadcast of FOOTBALL games, Gruden and McDonough routinely expressed horror at the level of violence displayed.

Behind the camera, sexual identity, skin color, and gender led the network to elevate female executives to supervising positions over studio shows, which led to no-impact, mostly attractive female broadcasters landing high-priced hosting jobs on nearly every studio show. Skipper gave huge contracts to Michelle Beadle, Cari Champion, Jemele Hill, Katie Nolan, Samantha Ponder, etc.

If you want to understand why Maria Taylor balked at a raise from $1 million to $5 million and left for NBC, you have to understand the culture Skipper, Richardson, and Deadspin created at ESPN. Taylor was radicalized by Taliban culture early in her career. She is quite talented. But ESPN raised her to feel entitled. Her black skin qualified her for reparations.

Nichols is talented, too. She's also accomplished as a journalist. She worked as a legit journalist at the Washington Post for eight years. Not Jeff Bezos' Washington Post. Nichols worked for the Graham family's Washington Post. Nichols fought her way to the top of sports media with hard work and cunning politics. She earned it. Yes, Nichols played woke to survive and thrive within corporate media. But she did not deserve this embarrassing public execution. She did not deserve the New York Times hit piece insinuating racism, nor the savage and irresponsible tweets about her personal life.

She whined to a friend that identity politics stole an opportunity she earned. Who wouldn't do that? Who hasn't done that?

Nichols and Pitaro are victims of a strategy Skipper and Richardson implemented a decade ago. Pitaro replaced Skipper in 2018 and immediately declared war on the sports media Taliban. Pitaro demanded that ESPN sportscasters talk about sports rather than Twitter-approved political talking points. He bought out Michelle Beadle's $5 million-a-year contract when she could no longer hide her utter disdain for football, the primary ratings driver for all of sports television. Pitaro bought out Jemele Hill when she chose sophomoric political commentary over sophomoric sports commentary. Pitaro declined to participate in the sports media fantasy that a cute Boston bartender, Katie Nolan, was the future of sports television.

Pitaro and ESPN executive vice president Norby Williamson were having great success smoking insurrectionists out of their Bristol caves. Everything changed in the summer of 2020. That's when a Minneapolis police officer assisted fentanyl activist St. George Floyd in the destruction of his life. In terms of cultural change, Derek Chauvin's knee was more powerful than Colin Kaepernick's.

It resurrected the Taliban, aka the Alphabet Mafia.

Insurrectionists in sports media and across American culture glorified St. George Floyd so they could use him to seize power and exact revenge on the infidels who stray from or don't adhere to the politics of identity.

What we've seen play out at ESPN over the past decade mirrors the rest of American society. Those of you applauding the death of Rachel Nichols, including those of you with black skin, will be the next victim of Sha-Maria Law.

Delano Squires: Joe Biden taught Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor how to play racial identity politics



President Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris to be his running mate because she's a black woman.

How do I know this? Biden said so. A year ago, when considering the future vice president, Biden bowed to the identity gods, stating he'd only consider a black woman for the vice presidency. His decision drew attention away from Harris' actual qualifications and probably aggravated Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, two of her more senior Senate colleagues.

Rachel Nichols got herself entangled in a similar drama when she expressed her belief that ESPN promoted Maria Taylor to host of NBA Countdown because Taylor is black. Why does Nichols believe that? Because Taylor and countless other black ESPN employees keep publicly and privately demanding that the network hire and promote more black people.

Identity politics rule and divide America. No one should be surprised that the Worldwide Leader in Sports suffers from the same obsession as the White House, academia, Hollywood, our military, and seemingly every other American institution.

It makes perfect sense for Rachel Nichols, a white woman, and Maria Taylor, a black woman, to be locked in a nasty racial tug of war playing out on the pages of the New York Times, the paper of record for identity politics.

The Times released an article on July 4 exposing the rift between Nichols and Taylor, two of ESPN's highest-profile employees. Last year, Nichols was accidentally captured on camera commenting on Taylor's latest promotion. The network awarded Taylor the coveted job of hosting its NBA pregame show. Nichols thought that job belonged to her. She expressed her frustration to a LeBron James associate.

I listened to the audio clip placed in the New York Times story. Nichols said nothing wrong. I don't expect her to be happy about being replaced, especially if she feels part of the reason is unrelated to talent. We can't have functioning workplaces if even the mildest expressions of frustration can turn into an organizational scandal. I also understand why Maria Taylor and her supporters are upset. Many athletes and sports journalists paint this as another instance of white people claiming to be allies in public but privately undermining their black colleagues.

This story is only newsworthy and interesting because it involves public personalities who fit the race and gender narrative that drives corporate media stories.

But there's another issue at play here, one that goes far beyond ESPN and professional sports. It is our current obsession with personal identity. Nichols' comments were actually less about Taylor and more about ESPN and the perception that it was fast-tracking Taylor because of its poor record on diversity in the past.

That perception fits perfectly into a cultural moment in which the focus on identity is not merely about ways in which Americans are different. It is mainly used to explain power dynamics that make some groups of people victims of systemic injustice and others perpetrators of oppression. The death of George Floyd caused many companies to look for ways to conciliate their black employees and prove to the public that they were supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement. Public commitments to hire and promote more black people, especially black women, accomplished both goals.

Joe Biden succumbed to the exact same pressure as ESPN. Biden's decision to put Harris on the Democratic ticket was welcomed by the politicians and activists who had been pressuring him to do so. Did it improve America's race relations? That's up for debate. What's not up for debate is that Biden's move made race and sex — not political ideology, popularity, or strategic value — the two most important qualifications for all prospective candidates.

Joe Biden could have publicly committed to picking the most qualified person and still selected Harris. Instead, he folded under public pressure. So do most of our elite institutions. The stain of being labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic causes them to make decisions that are more about self-preservation than social good.

The consequences of bowing to identity extortion aren't confined to our institutions. There is also an "identity stigma" on the people who receive these opportunities, regardless of their actual qualifications. If the people providing access to jobs spend all of their time talking about allocating resources based on race, sex, and gender identity, no one should be surprised by pushback from anyone who feels they are being denied opportunities based on characteristics outside their control.

As a father, the lesson here is clear. If I treat all of my children poorly, they will grow up to resent me. If I treat one better than the others, they will grow up to resent each other. America is rife with resentment.

Our institutions would benefit from focusing more on merit and qualifications than personal identity. We learn and grow from being exposed to different people with different experiences, yet skin color and sex don't tell you everything you need to know about a person. Organizations demonstrate their commitment to equity by consistently applying the same standards of performance and evaluation to all employees, not by assuming there should be a predetermined number of people of a specific demographic in every position. Doing so may have made the controversy surrounding Maria Taylor and Rachel Nichols a non-story.

Hopefully we all learn that lesson.

Whitlock: Maria Taylor is waiting to exhale while ESPN and the rest of America can’t breathe



ESPN's mission statement is "to serve sports fans in the community. Anytime. Anywhere."

Over the past decade, the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports" has been forced to deviate from its mission. Its mission statement unofficially became "to serve liberal sports fans in every community. Anytime. Anywhere."

The Maria Taylor-Rachel Nichols controversy will spark a different ESPN mission statement. "To serve angry and easily offended black women in every community. Anytime. Anywhere."

I know I'm not supposed to say that. I'm supposed to shout "Yass queen" and pretend that Taylor's fight for an $8 million-a-year contract is the equivalent of Rosa Parks refusing to take a back seat on a bus.

Sorry, I'm not going to tell that lie. We can't construct a country and a workplace culture centered around satiating the egos, emotions, and economic demands of women or people who claim to be offended by everything.

America promises freedom and opportunity. America does not promise its citizens freedom from offense. That's a make-believe utopian world created and promoted by Marxists determined to cast America as the most evil place on earth.

In her bid to improve her contract leverage, Taylor and her enablers are casting ESPN as one of America's most racist work cultures. Because Nichols asserted that Taylor's dark skin contributed to Taylor getting a job promised to Nichols, Taylor, the National Association of Black Journalists, a Los Angeles Times columnist, and many others are pretending Bristol, Connecticut, is Mississippi Burning.

It's not true. I worked at ESPN twice. ESPN is not hostile to black employees. It's hostile to employees who don't toe the Democratic Party political line.

In 2017, I wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal spelling out how the radical website Deadspin bullied ESPN to adopt a far-left bias. Here's a short excerpt from my piece. You can read the whole thing here.

Deadspin significantly elevated the price of implementing change at ESPN. The often-caustic blog mastered search-engine optimization and Twitter's ability to gin up faux outrage. Its writers trolled ESPN talent and executives, getting plenty of attention along the way. The site particularly delighted in exposing alleged sexual malfeasance among ESPN employees.

Deadspin's bullying of ESPN happened between 2007 and 2015. By the time of my WSJ piece, Deadspin had justifiably declared victory over the Worldwide Leader. In 2016, Deadspin expat Kevin Draper, now the New York Times' sports media reporter, wrote a post celebrating ESPN's progressive agenda and point of view.

Sports fans were far less enthusiastic. ESPN's ratings dipped at a rate that couldn't be explained solely by cable-cutting. Rebel bloggers such as Dave Portnoy and Clay Travis enhanced their followings by pointing out and capitalizing on ESPN's political correctness and blandness.

By 2018, the Walt Disney Company recognized its mistake and used ESPN president John Skipper's cocaine-induced departure as a pivot point. ESPN's new president, Jimmy Pitaro, took over the sports network and promptly pushed to remove its political bias. Donald Trump troller in chief Jemele Hill was pushed out of her prominent role as a host of the 6 p.m. SportsCenter. Pitaro instructed the network's broadcasters and opinionists to avoid politics and Donald Trump.

Ironically, another drug-induced departure — the death of fentanyl activist Rev. George Floyd Luther III — sparked a new ESPN pivot. When St. George died, Maria Taylor emerged as the second coming of Jemele Hill. She used St. George's death as a springboard to launch herself as the pretty face of ESPN.

She turned the Worldwide Leader into the sports marketing arm of Black Lives Matter. She verbally beat up Saints quarterback Drew Brees for stating support of the national anthem. In the pages of the New York Times, in stories written by Kevin Draper — the former Deadspin writer — Taylor smeared a white co-worker, Dave Lamont, as racist because he was overheard saying black employees were griping on a conference call.

Taylor told Draper, "It was such a slap in the face. When I was in it, that was horrible. But now, looking back, it was an awakening moment. This is part of our culture. There are people that feel this way."

This week, Taylor's awakening has brought ESPN to its knees. She's now offended because in a private conversation, Nichols told a white man that ESPN's crappy record on diversity forced the network to give Taylor a hosting job that had been promised contractually to Nichols.

ESPN removed Nichols from NBA Finals coverage and took her daily show off the air for one day. The blowback on Nichols is preposterous and unfair.

But what's worse will be the damage done to ESPN's work culture. Everybody — black and white — can see what Taylor is doing. It's all a money-grab. ESPN broadcasters have been getting slapped with hefty pay cuts the past two years. Taylor wants her salary elevated from $1 million to $8 million, according to reports.

She's framing ESPN as racist to get the money. In this cancel culture environment, she might cost Jimmy Pitaro his job.

Yesterday, a column in the Los Angeles Times called Taylor the "perfect journalist." I'm not kidding. Here's the excerpt:

Taylor was described to the Los Angeles Times by current and former ESPN employees as a "perfect journalist." In addition to her talent on camera, she is known internally for working hard, mentoring young journalists of all backgrounds and establishing a foundation to support women and journalists of color.

Do newspapers even know what journalism is? Mentoring young journalists and establishing foundations of support for women and journalists of color sounds more like charity than journalism. Journalism is breaking news, probing news sources for interesting insight and perspective, developing sources.

Maria Taylor sounds like an activist. Or a character from Terry McMillan's book-turned-movie "Waiting to Exhale."

I bet Jimmy Pitaro can't breathe right now.

Former NBA player Stephen Jackson backs Rachel Nichols, rips ESPN for giving Maria Taylor 'sympathy job' to 'look good' amid BLM, George Floyd rioting



Former NBA player Stephen Jackson is backing ESPN's Rachel Nichols and blasting the sports network for giving Nichols' black colleague Maria Taylor a "sympathy job" to "make themselves look good" amid last year's Black Lives Matter and George Floyd rioting.

What's the background?

As TheBlaze's Jason Whitlock pointed out Monday, Taylor took unjustifiable offense after Nichols made the complaint in a private, leaked conversation. Nichols was annoyed that Taylor got the ESPN NBA Countdown hosting job over her and that it was due to diversity pressure.

Whitlock added in his Tuesday follow-up op-ed that he "can't imagine pretending to be as fragile as Taylor, a 34-year-old former Division I basketball and volleyball player. I can't imagine being so obsessed with the opinions of my white co-workers that their private thoughts could hurt me to the point that I'd expect the company's human resources department to address it."

And now the hammer has come down harder on Nichols, as CNBC reported Tuesday that ESPN has pulled Nichols from sideline coverage of the NBA Fiinals between the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns.

Stephen Jackson steps in

Jackson came to Nichols' defense Monday in an Instagram video and placed the blame squarely on ESPN's shoulders.

"We all ramble. We say things when we're frustrated. And you know, Rachel did deserve that job. It's just plain and simple. I talked to Rachel, and I know a lot of things she was saying out of frustration because ESPN put her in a bad position. And they even put Maria in a position trying to give Maria a sympathy job," Jackson said.

He added that ESPN was "trying to make themselves look good because all the Black Lives Matter ... and George Floyd stuff was going on. So ESPN tried to make themselves look good by taking the job from Rachel that she had already had, that they'd already told her she had, that she deserved, and give it to Maria just to make themselves look good. It wasn't a genuine job they wanted to give Maria. ... ESPN's behind all this ... I can't blame Rachel. I Iove Rachel, and I'm gonna stand behind her, I spoke to her. And I'm gonna stand behind Maria, too. But ESPN, ya'll are some suckers ... y'all did this."

But that's not all Jackson said.

He posted three other videos relating to the controversy as well as larger issues. In one Jackson said he understands Nichols' dissatisfaction, that she "never" showed him signs of being "racist," and that he'd be angry too if he lost out on a job for which he was qualified based on race alone.

'I'm gonna hit y'all with a harsh truth'

In another he told viewers that "a lot of y'all ... still livin' off your mama, still livin' in your mama house and wondering why you ain't winning or 'I ain't got nothin' going on.' I'm gonna hit y'all with a harsh truth: I am the face for equality, but I also am the face of being black and proud and being strong and goin' to get what's mine. Not askin' no white person or nobody to give me nothin'. I'm gonna take what's mine, like I been doin'."

Jackson added that some of his viewers also are "quick to forget" that when Nichols' show, "The Jump," started, "Rachel hired all black people. Remember that."

In his final clip, Jackson blasted those who are "sittin' around waiting for somebody to hand you something instead of" doing things for themselves. He also said many of his viewers are "stuck in this attitude of blaming white people for why you ain't made it ... get up off your ass and put in the work. Ain't nobody holding you back — that's you."

Here are all of Jackson's clips in one video. Content warning: Profanity, N-word uttered:

Stephen Jackson Defends Rachel Nichols After ESPN Leaked Audio youtu.be

Backlash

According to HotNewHipHop, Jackson got hit with backlash on social media for backing Nichols "as some felt like he shouldn't be rushing to the defense of a white woman, especially considering the fact that he is an activist." The outlet added that criticism of Jackson "ended up snowballing into memes, and for now, Jackson isn't in good standing with the rest of NBA Twitter."

(H/T: The Daily Wire)

Fearless: Rachel Nichols ‘deeply sorry’ Maria Taylor is not woman enough for her job, gives Taylor on-camera belly rub and head pat



About 25 years ago, a bigoted co-worker of mine at the Kansas City Star stood up in a staff meeting and complained to the publisher and the editor that I was an unqualified stain on the newspaper.

Including me, there were approximately 25 people in the meeting. There may have been two other black men in the room. No one offered me a defense. The publisher and editor muttered a weak rebuttal.

I left the meeting mad. But I also left the meeting determined. Determined to continue shining. Determined to make fools of anyone who doubted me as a journalist and a columnist.

At the time of the meeting, I'd worked as a sports columnist at the KC Star for three years. I was wildly popular. My impact and success at the Star had been chronicled in a cover story by the Columbia Journalism Review. My impact and success caused the publisher and editor to direct additional finances toward expanding the sports department.

My co-worker was a raving, jealous lunatic with a well-known reputation for bigotry and sloppy work.

I never sought an apology from him. His support was immaterial to my success. I worked alongside him for the next 13 years without incident. He covered one of our major beats. We communicated when necessary.

I bring all this up because I don't understand the Maria Taylor-Rachel Nichols controversy. In a private conversation, Nichols politely told a friend that Taylor's race played a role in Taylor getting the ESPN NBA Countdown hosting job over Nichols.

Nichols did not disparage Taylor's talent or work ethic. Nichols did not state her opinion publicly. Nichols did nothing to offend Taylor. Nothing. Nichols' private conversation was accidentally recorded and a year later intentionally leaked to the New York Times.

Taylor has refused to speak with Nichols and has refused to appear on camera with Nichols for the past year because Nichols had the audacity to think ESPN plays the racial diversity game.

This story reached full absurdity Monday afternoon when Nichols opened her television show, "The Jump," by stating she's "deeply sorry" for disappointing and hurting her co-workers and Maria Taylor. Former NBA players Kendrick Perkins and Richard Jefferson then briefly scolded Nichols before slobbering on about how great Taylor is. Nichols spoke for 27 seconds. Perkins and Jefferson — two people who had nothing to do with the friction between Nichols and Taylor — rambled for 40 seconds apiece.

It was bizarre. This entire controversy is ludicrous and feels manufactured. It reminds me of the Matt James-Rachael Kirkconnell season of "The Bachelor." A white woman went on national TV in pursuit of a black husband, and she was framed as racist because three years earlier she wore a sundress at a sorority party celebrating the old South.

This is what television networks and personalities do. They gin up and/or exploit racial dysfunction for ratings, relevance, and, in Taylor's case, contract leverage.

I can't imagine pretending to be as fragile as Taylor, a 34-year-old former Division I basketball and volleyball player. I can't imagine being so obsessed with the opinions of my white co-workers that their private thoughts could hurt me to the point that I'd expect the company's human resources department to address it.

This is embarrassing for black people. I say black people, and not just Taylor, because Perkins, Jefferson, Jalen Rose, and several other black ESPN employees have publicly validated Taylor's allegedly hurt feelings. This is my problem with modern liberals — black and white. Black liberals turn emotional and weak at the thought of a white person not rubbing their bellies and patting their heads in approval. They believe that the approval, appreciation, and affinity of white people is necessary for black success.

It's never been true in my career. My work ethic has always determined my level of success. I worked at the Kansas City Star for 16 straight years. Throughout those last 13 years, the management at the Star tried to satisfy my detractors and diminish my level of success and spotlight.

Was the management racist? Not really. A few of my detractors definitely were, and they squealed loudly. Management oiled the squeaky wheels. It's what weak leadership does.

I didn't have time to squeak. I was too focused on letting my work squeak back. In 2007, I won the most prestigious journalism award the newspaper had received in 15 years, and my work earned me an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I started working for ESPN and Fox Sports. I launched successful local radio shows.

I overwhelmed my detractors with excellence. The excellence I produced swelled my bank account. In 2010, I left the Kansas City Star for far greener pastures. A decade later, no one knows the name or the work of my KC detractors.

Maria Taylor doesn't have detractors. She has competitors. No one is questioning Taylor's broadcasting talent. She's a natural on camera. Does she work as hard as her competitors? That's up for debate. In the last year, she's chosen to cut corners by constantly playing the race card and claiming that any and every slight is a bullet to her head.

She acts like she's not woman enough to handle the natural turbulence and jealousy at the top of any industry. Rachel Nichols has handled this kerfuffle like a grown woman. Taylor appears childish. At the top of her TV show Monday, Nichols symbolically rubbed Taylor's belly and patted her head. "Black Twitter" was very pleased with the "apology."

It's embarrassing.

The level of delusion fueling this fiasco is mind-blowing. According to the New York Post, Taylor wants a contract similar to a Stephen A. Smith's $8 million-a-year deal.

It's a preposterous demand. Everyone knows it. Taylor doesn't know the position she plays. To use a football analogy, Taylor plays center and Smith plays quarterback. Smith is ESPN's franchise quarterback. He's Lamar Jackson. Viewers tune in to see him succeed or fail.

On NBA Countdown, Taylor snaps the ball to journeymen quarterbacks — Jalen Rose, Jay Williams, and Adrian Wojnarowski. They are Jared Goff, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Sam Darnold. You could replace Taylor with another center — Nichols — and no one would notice.

The difference is, Nichols can handle the physicality of playing in the NFL. Taylor can't. She requires constant worship, belly rubs, and head pats from white people.

It's not going to happen. Trust me, her black peers, including the ones publicly supporting her, criticize her privately.

My credentials as an impact sports journalist are undeniable. I still have detractors. It's the price of success. Pay the price or go work at a fast-food drive-through.