You never know quite what you’re going to get when it comes to the sea of humanity that is Radio Row at the Super Bowl. And that unpredictability and randomness is part of what makes Radio Row one of the most unique spectacles in sports media. Like Warren Sapp walking out on Infinity Sports Network host Zach Gelb after he dared to compliment Penn State prospect Abdul Carter in comparing him to Micah Parsons.
Sapp sat down with Gelb for his national radio show and the interview was going well enough when the pair started talking about this year’s NFL Draft prospects. As a Colorado assistant coach with Deion Sanders, Warren Sapp talked up both Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter as top picks along with Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward.
But when Zach Gelb dared to bring Penn State pass rusher Abdul Carter into the mix, Sapp became combative. He asked what pass rushers Penn State has ever produced. When Gelb immediately and obviously answered Micah Parsons, Sapp dismissed it and then walked off.
And he then snubbed Gelb’s attempted handshake in the process.
This is truly bizarre.
Does Warren Sapp have something against Abdul Carter or Micah Parsons? It may be the latter. In 2022, Sapp praised Parsons in an interview with Rich Eisen, saying that his sack numbers would be off the charts if the Cowboys employed him as a pass rusher full-time.
But by last January, Sapp changed his tune about Parsons, telling Jason Whitlock, “I can show you enough plays where he look like Betty Taylor rather than Lawrence.”
Warren Sapp is entitled to his opinion about Micah Parsons, but to say that he’s not a good pass rusher is an extraordinarily scorching hot take that just doesn’t compute with reality. Parsons has 52.5 sacks in four NFL seasons, never registering less than 12 in any single campaign. And that came this year when he only played in 13 games. So Zach Gelb’s claim that he gets 15 sacks a season may be a slight exaggeration but it’s definitely in the ballpark. Oh, and during those four seasons, he is 5th overall in the NFL in sacks. I’m not an NFL Hall of Famer, but that seems like a pretty great pass rusher to me!
Left in all of this is the weirdness of throwing Carter under the bus. Abdul Carter is a consensus Top 5 pick in this year’s NFL Draft. Plenty of mock drafts have him as the #1 pick overall. And indirectly thanks to this really strange Super Bowl interview with Warren Sapp, he may have just received some bulletin board material out of nowhere to help motivate him at the next level.
About Matt Yoder