When the latest batch of ESPN layoffs was revealed to include Ryan Clark, the reactions were mixed. Yet, a lot of people felt sympathy for the NFL analyst after he lost his job at a popular network.
Well, not Nick Bosa.
While it took a while for the San Francisco 49ers’ All-Pro edge-rusher to react, it finally arrived a few days later.
Nick Bosa Happy About ESPN Firing Ryan Clark?
Clark spent nearly 12 years on ESPN. That’s one year less than his NFL playing career lasted, proving that the Pro Bowl safety turned Super Bowl champion has enjoyed arguably just as stable a career post-retirement as when he was playing in the league.
Many argue that Clark, who has more than 514,500 followers on X and a successful podcast in “The Pivot,” will be just fine after the split from ESPN.
Some, like Bosa, aren’t hiding the fact that they’re happy about Clark being forced to find a new job. Bosa quote-tweeted the news with the okay hand emoji.
What makes this even more fascinating is the fact that this is Bosa’s first original post on X since Nov. 12, 2022. So, after four years of hibernation, it was Clark’s firing that pulled the former NFL Defensive Player of the Year winner out of his cave.
Clearly, this is a passionate subject for Bosa, who has 167,500 followers on X. Bosa, 28, is coming off a season in which he only played three games for the 49ers, so it’s not like he hasn’t had free time. So, why is Bosa celebrating Clark’s surprise firing from ESPN?
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Well, back in 2024, Clark previously used his podcast to go after Bosa, criticizing him for wearing a MAGA hat.
“I also think it’s sort of ironic this happens in San Francisco, where Colin Kaepernick legitimately lost his career,” Clark said. “Not because he said America is a bad place, because he said, ‘I want to make America a better place for people like us.’ Not because he said that he wants brown and Black people to be superior to others, but just equal. He wanted their lives and our lives to matter as much as everyone else’s life.
“The MAGA movement has been very clear that all lives don’t matter the same, that all people aren’t sort of deserving of the same treatment, of the same compassion, of the same level of life and liberty,” Clark added. “And so I do think that the ‘shut up and dribble’ thing that always is told to the LeBron James when he speaks up against police brutality, to the Colin Kaepernicks when he speaks up against police brutality, to all these athletes who were involved in movements in 2020, it only seems to go to the athletes that look like us, to the people that are speaking for the marginalized and the minorities as opposed to the majorities. Because when [Donald Trump] called Colin Kaepernick and other people who kneeled ‘sons of [expletives],’ nobody told him to keep politics out of sports.
“So it seems very clear to me Nick Bosa understands that when you wear that hat, you take a side,” Clark argued. “You take a side of division in a sport that’s supposed to bring us together. I’m just waiting for all the people who comment under political and sports things to shut up and dribble or to shut up and play football to tell him to shut up and rush, but they ain’t going to say it ’cause they feel the exact same way he does.”
While Clark made those comments back in 2024, Bosa clearly didn’t forget them.
It’s worth noting that Bosa isn’t the only former NFL player celebrating Clark’s firing. On Wednesday, former NFL defensive lineman Breiden Fehoko chimed in, saying “we need less race baiters” and that “Ryan Clark and Co. feel they can’t get a point across without saying it’s because of skin color.”
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