Stephen A. Smith has discussed anything and everything on his podcast, the Stephen A. Smith Show, in recent months. So when Robert Griffin III and Ryan Clark got into a war of words on social media over the discourse around Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s rivalry, you just knew that Smith would have something to say on the matter.
The beef between Griffin III and Clark stems from comments made about the altercation between Clark and Reese in the opening game of the WNBA season last week. From there, the war of words and videos on social media quickly got personal.
Most notably, Clark believes that Griffin “isn’t having many conversations” in his household about the kind of things that Reese deals with as a black woman in the WNBA, particularly because Griffin decided to marry two white women, including his current wife, Greta Griffin.
Understandably, Griffin took issue with this, firing back in a video where he condemned Clark about “personally attacking” he and his family.
Stephen A. Smith weighed in on the matter on Wednesday’s edition of The Stephen A. Smith Show, making it incredibly clear right away that he is “not as tight” with RGIII as he is with Clark. So naturally, he believes that Clark’s beef with Griffin is something that should not be seen as a “fireable offense.”
“I don’t want to hear sh*t about Ryan Clark getting fired,” said Smith. “I don’t want to hear that. Ryan Clark is my colleague, he is my friend and brother. He is a good man and a good brother. There is no way on earth that I would be quiet if he was fired over something like this. I’m not saying he’s right, and I’ll get into that in a second. But this is not a fireable offense. I don’t usually talk about ESPN business. And I’m not going to right now. Other than to say, RGIII clearly is not liked by Ryan Clark. What Ryan Clark said is not something he usually does. Corny, phony, those are the kinds of things he said about RGIII specifically. That’s what he feels.
Though Smith clearly believes that Clark’s beef with Griffin III shouldn’t be something that ESPN jumps to vilify Clark about, he did openly criticize Clark for what he believes “crossed the line” when he brought up Griffin’s personal life, specifically his relationship with his wife Grete Griffin.
“I love my man RC,” added Smith. “I thought he crossed the line when he brought up you RGIII, being married not once but twice to white women. But he don’t like your a*s. That might have had something to do with it. I’m not condoning him doing that. I’m not condoning him bringing that up. If RC and I had spoke about it in-depth, I would have told him don’t go there. There’s no need for all of that. But I want to emphasize something very important. RGIII, he never attacked your wife. He never attacked your family. He was attacking you, and you know it.
“Now, that don’t make it correct, the mentioning of your wife. I’ll concede that. He didn’t utter a negative syllable about your wife. He never mentioned your children. So when you say (he was) attacking your wife and attacking your family, your children. How did he do that? Ryan Clark did not do that. He talked about you and your behavior. He talked about how you lean towards highlighting her ethnicity. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I pay no attention to that stuff. But I know what he said. He was saying she was much more than the color of her skin. He did in no way denigrate your wife.”
As far as the little jab that Griffin took at ESPN and how Clark’s comments were a “bad look” for the network, Smith believes that Griffin may have been trying to get ESPN’s attention to potentially have them turn on Clark due to this situation.
“When you sat up there and said it was a bad look for ESPN… I guess it’s within your right to hit back at RC, considering you felt hit at yourself. But as somebody who works at ESPN, come on bro,” Smith said. “You know that was some slick sh*t you was doing right? Because when you said it was a bad look for ESPN, you know we work at a place where ESPN is going to say ‘What is he talking about. It is a bad look for ESPN.’
“You didn’t have to go there. That’s between you and Ryan. Ryan said that on The Pivot. Ryan shows up on Get Up. Ryan shows up on First Take. Ryan shows up on NFL Live. Ryan contributes on Monday Night Countdown. He never mentioned you on any of those places. Why, on his podcast, on a spot that he owns and operates, would you ignore that and bring up ESPN? Because you were trying to get him in trouble. You are looking at ESPN for help.”
Smith has notably had his own fair share of disputes with Griffin as of late, calling him out for his past shots at ESPN as a network on social media. So it’s not exactly all that much of a shock that he seems to be siding with Clark on this matter.