Someone at ESPN was going to try and turn Black Monday in the NFL into a conversation about race, and that someone just so happened to be Stephen A. Smith.
Smith’s moaning about Black Monday – the term used to describe the day in which people traditionally lose their jobs around the league – comes as a bit of a surprise given the fact that he’s shared some smart, common-sense-driven opinions in recent weeks.
However, he simply couldn’t resist the temptation of talking black and white during Monday’s edition of ‘First Take.’
Smith’s epiphany that the entire sports world should stop saying Black Monday and start referring to the day as White Monday came while he and Shannon Sharpe were discussing the New England Patriots firing Jerod Mayo, who is black, after just one season at the helm.
“I don’t like this. They call it Black Monday for a reason, and this certainly typifies it,” Smith said. “I don’t know why it’s not called White Monday. Doug Pederson got fired from Jacksonville. He deserved that firing. Jerod Mayo clearly was not given a lengthy enough opportunity considering what Bill Belichick left him with from a talent perspective.”
While it may have only been just a quick, one-off comment about Black Monday, the fact that Smith’s brain even went in that direction is ridiculous.
The term Black Monday was first used in the NFL world in 1998 when the Associated Press published an article with the headline “Black Monday for N.F.L. coaches.” Smith was writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time, and was certainly aware of the relatively new term at the time.
That was then, and this is now, and in 2025, when the word ‘black’ is associated with anything that could be taken as a negative connotation, then it’s going to be brought up, even the topic has absolutely nothing to do with the color of anyone’s skin.
