Crossing Broad
Lost in the Eagles’ celebration was a Twitter kerfuffle centered on Benjamin Solak, who is now with ESPN but came up through the Bleeding Green ranks. He used to do the Kist and Solak podcast and had a stint at The Ringer. After the Bills/Chiefs game, he went online to break down the incomplete pass from Josh Allen to Dalton Kincaid:
Here’s why I think Josh Allen shoulda thrown the swing to Khalil Shakir.
Think the zone/man pre-snap tells got him off Shakir early but that’s still your best option. He still makes a great throw to Kincaid that shoulda been caught https://t.co/aAOezZv8oC pic.twitter.com/BKVDvcfdEk
— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) January 27, 2025
Alright, seems fair enough. He thinks Allen should have thrown a swing pass there against the blitz, and that’s just like, his opinion, man.
Apparently that pissed off people, A LOT. Ryan Leaf basically threatened to beat his ass before deleting the tweet, and Ryan Fitzpatrick called him an armchair analyst in a more palatable evisceration:
I actually really like your passion and knowledge for the game but sitting in your comfortable swivel chair with the heater on in the house and a clicker in hand makes the game very easy
Having two unblocked, unimpeded defenders believe it or not is pretty difficult to… https://t.co/AC7I9P4zMO
— Ryan Fitzpatrick (@FitzMagic_14) January 27, 2025
Damn lol. This reminds me of the scene from Office Space – “I believe you’d get your ass kicked saying something like that man.” A little extreme from Ryan Leaf though, who is suggesting that you should basically… dox yourself? You should dox yourself if you are an ESPN analyst and you share an opinion about a play. And then Fitzmagic tells Solak, in a much kinder way, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
In a lot of ways, this is not a story. People being rude on Twitter. In other news, the grass is green, the sky is blue, and Joel Embiid will be re-evaluated in two weeks. But Solak is now working for ESPN and there’s a lot of attention that comes with it. You’re going to get this kind of scrutiny when you’re at the very top of the sports media food chain, and you’re going to find yourself in the crosshairs often, sometimes fairly and sometimes unfairly. People who did not play the game at a high level, or at all, are always going to face criticism from those who did play the game, and navigating that can be a tough balancing act. When do you double down on a strong opinion or bit of film analysis vs. backing off and deferring to a colleague like Dan Orlovsky? Something to think about.
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