Stephen A. Smith is rarely afraid to jump off the porch with a bold or controversial opinion, although he likely wishes he showed some more restraint when discussing the surprise retirement of a Philadelphia Eagles star this week.
Smith has now apologized multiple times, including again live on his ESPN show “First Take” Thursday morning, after facing online backlash for remarks about offensive lineman Lane Johnson that many viewers deemed insensitive.
In his 14th NFL season with the 2-2 Eagles, Johnson announced Tuesday that he is retiring to focus on his mental health.
“I deeply wanted to gut it out for one more year; to take the field with my brothers for one last season,” Johnson said in a statement. “But after a lot of reflection, I’ve realized that my personal and family priorities in my life have changed.”
“Right now, it is critical that I focus on my mental health. I owe it to my teammates, coaches, the organization and the fans to have my head and heart 100 percent in the game. And right now my heart is telling me that it’s time to say goodbye to football.”
Smith first responded to the retirement during Wednesday’s episode of “First Take,” and he was laughing during much of his commentary.
“Four games into the 2026 season, a dude that has been in the league forever, sits back and says, ‘I need to focus on my mental health,’” Smith said. “As an offensive tackle, Lord, you know it’s bad. There’s no way [if] you’re undefeated, you’re winning football games, you’re thriving, everybody’s got Super Bowl in their sights, [that] you walk away. You walk away because it’s a very, very, very bad situation, and it doesn’t look to be getting any better.”
“And this brother said, ‘Hey, my life matters. It’s time. I’m gonna call it quits,” Smith added. “My mental health. My mental.’ Lord! That’s trouble for the Philadelphia Eagles, and everybody in the City of Brotherly Love knows it.”
Smith slightly attempted to walk back his comments in the following segment of the show, claiming he was joking about Philadelphia’s struggles on the field and not Johnson’s mental health concerns. It was too late, though, as outrage began to build on social media.
“How evil do you have to be…how inhumane…to mock the livelihood and mental wellness of human being…because you want football to be fun?” X user @_AstronautJonez wrote about Smith’s analysis of Johnson’s retirement.
“Lane Johnson’s mom has cancer. His dad is also sick,” NFL content creator @Chase_Senior replied to Smith in a tweet that went viral. “I read your book and you talked about how difficult your life got when your mom got sick and after she passed, you had to go to therapy because you were depressed and you took time off of work. [You’re] mocking Lane Johnson’s mental health struggles when you’ve been open about your own mental health struggles?
“Starting to think Stephen A says outlandish things on ESPN just so he can apologize on his own platform,” comedian @KevOnStage added.
Smith offered up an initial apology later Wednesday on his SiriusXM “Stephen A. Smith Show,” and then gave another lengthy mea culpa on “First Take” Thursday morning:
“Yesterday, I made news in regards to Lane Johnson retiring from the National Football League and departing from the Philadelphia Eagles. My intent was joking about the Eagles. Bottom line is this: It doesn’t matter what my intent was, it’s how it’s perceived. I messed up,” he said.
“And by the way, for those of you out there looking right now, this is not ESPN,” he continued. “This is not somebody forcing me to make an apology. Nobody did that. Nobody can do that. Here’s the reality of the situation: I was wrong. And when you’re an adult and you’re a man, you have to admit that you were wrong. I was wrong to Lane Johnson. I was wrong to the Philadelphia Eagles. I messed up because I made light of the issue of mental health when that was not my intent, but it wasn’t made clear enough.
“But in reflecting on it over the last 24 hours or so, I want to say something that’s incredibly, incredibly important. As much as I owe the apology to Lane Johnson and to the Philadelphia Eagles, it does not stop there. Mental health obviously is an incredibly serious issue. I know it. I went through it myself. I know a lot of people who have gone through it. I want to thank people like Charlamagne Tha God, like the great Jay Glazer, like Mike Wilbon, like Kimberly Martin, who told me in real time yesterday that I was coming across as making light of the situation. Thank goodness she was sitting here next to me because I was immediately alerted that that was how it was coming across.
“That was wrong, that was irresponsible on my part, but more importantly than that, especially speaking to my guy Jay Glazer this morning and Wilbon yesterday, there’s a lot of people in this country and in this world that are going through mental health issues. And the biggest regret that I have for all of this is the fact that it may have given people that wanted to open the door to seek help a reason to pause and hesitate and not do so. And I can’t emphasize enough how sorry I am about that because it is a real issue.
“And for everybody out there that’s struggling, that need help, please, please don’t look at me as somebody who’s trying to dissuade you from doing so. It takes courage for the Lane Johnsons of the world to speak up the way that he did to Jay Glazer in 2021 when he first revealed all that was going on with him. It takes courage for people out there struggling through mental health issues to come forward, to acknowledge that they are really struggling and that they need help. And for me, although it was not my intent to come across as making light of that, the reality is my biggest regret.
“I do, between this show and other shows, I do over 950 hours of live content a year. I’ve made mistakes before. I apologize. I’m making mistakes now. I’m going to apologize. If I do it in the future, I’ll apologize again. But the bigger issue is to make sure to bring attention to the fact that mental health is a real, real thing. And over the last 24 hours, with the inordinate amount of people that have spoken to me that reminded me of my struggles and the courage it takes to come forward and to acknowledge, ‘I really, really need help,’ it’s made me better.
“It’s made Jay Glazer better. It’s made a plethora of people throughout this nation and throughout this world better, and I don’t want to play a role in any way in persuading anybody from coming forward and acknowledging that they need all the help that they can get. I want to embrace that, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson said it best. I should be one of the many people out there willing to help, not in any way coming across as somebody who would dissuade somebody from going out there and seeking the help that they deserve.
“So on that note, I apologize. I need to do better. And I will, and that’s what I wanted to say. I want to start off the show sincerely: my apologies.”
While he certainly took the long route to do it, let’s hope Smith’s apology will encourage people struggling with mental health issues to seek the help they need.
