Drake Maye is having an MVP-caliber season as he and Mike Vrabel have led the new generation of the New England Patriots to being one of the great surprises in the NFL with a league-best 9-2 record. But it’s not enough for Cam Newton, Stephen A. Smith, and First Take.
Since the dawn of its existence, First Take has relied on feuds with top athletes to stay relevant. Skip Bayless hammered LeBron James for years and years and years. Why? Because he was the biggest star in sports and it helped the show shoot into notoriety. When Bayless left, Stephen A. Smith picked up the baton and made his own feud with LeBron much more personal.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s LeBron James, Tim Tebow, Kevin Durant, Jalen Hurts, or Drake Maye. First Take depends on a cycle of calling out and defending star athletes. And if they choose to get involved themselves, it only sends the cycle into hyperdrive. Just look at how much content Smith got out of LeBron James confronting him at an NBA game last season over critical comments regarding his son.
But the ironic thing about the situation involving Drake Maye, Cam Newton and Stephen A. Smith is that Maye tried his best not to become involved. But he still got steamrolled by First Take anyways. Maye’s response to Cam Newton’s criticism was to brush it off and claim that he hadn’t seen it. That should have been the end of it. Right?
No, instead it launched Stephen A. Smith into a self-indulgent rant about how no athlete anywhere in the world could possibly be unaware of what Cam Newton said on First Take because First Take is the most significant show in the universe, or at least only second to Stephen A. Smith’s podcast.
“[Drake Maye] is a liar…First Take is the number one morning show..don’t tell me you a athlete and you don’t know that. Don’t tell me you a athlete and you don’t know that Cam Newton is on this show. You lying.” – Stephen A. Smith pic.twitter.com/kaxxptSMpY
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 20, 2025
Let’s start with this. Stephen A. Smith called Drake Maye a liar for saying he doesn’t watch First Take on a regular basis.
Does he realize how absurd that sounds? As if every professional athlete is huddled around televisions in the locker room just waiting to see if their name is mentioned on a show that is watched by 500,000 viewers when the average NFL game draws tens of millions. A week prior to the Thursday outburst, First Take was watched by 367,000 viewers. We’re talking an audience about the equivalent of AEW Collision, CNN News Central, or primetime programming on HGTV here. Those figures don’t exactly scream something that is at the center of the cultural universe.
Could Drake Maye or any other NFL player actually be… focused on their job? Trying not to get drawn into headlines or needless media spats? Inconceivable!
The ironic thing is that if Maye would have taken the bait, he would have opened himself up to even more criticism for stooping to the level of First Take and falling for such a needless distraction. It reveals that today’s athletes are in a no-win situation with today’s media. Is it any wonder that so many athletes are choosing to shy away from a relationship with the media and go out on their own with their own messaging platforms? Why engage in something where the deck seems to be always stacked against you no matter what you say?
Nevertheless, a show like First Take needs conflict in order to survive. It’s the name of the game in debate shows. There has to be some disagreement, some tension, some sense of theatre. From sports to cable news, it’s what the entire medium survives on. It’s why we are predisposed to believe that the entire enterprise is just made-for-TV shtick and that the takes are as real as what you would see on Jerry Springer.
And as our culture becomes more dependent on algorithms, we now live in a never ending cycle of reactions. To the point that it doesn’t even matter who or what we are reacting to, just that we can feel some kind of visceral emotion in doing it. And that is the universe where First Take truly thrives. But it has come at a cost that has led to making our daily conversation about anything so much more exhausting.
The clip of Smith’s rant at Drake Maye on the Awful Announcing X account has drawn 13 million views. 13 million! That dwarfs the daily audience of the show itself.
But go through the reactions and the shares and there is hardly a single voice saying that this is great television. There isn’t support for Stephen A. Smith cheering him on in his and Cam Newton’s one-sided beef with Drake Maye. There aren’t testimonies saying this is why First Take is No. 1 in morning show sports television. Instead, you see the following from people who are working inside sports media mocking Smith for his comments.
“ESPN is a bad product.”
“this man really thinks the sun rises and sets with this show … it’s fascinating lol”
“Many active players do not pay attention to 99.99% of sports media Stephen A. convincing himself he’s a central figure within sports leagues is… something”
“lol yea man. We are just out here watching morning talk shows during the week at work.”
Even Smith’s quasi-ESPN colleague Will Compton chimed in with a dose of reality, saying “A shot in the dark here but I’d guess QB Drake ‘Drake Maye’ Maye doesn’t know because he doesn’t watch First Take at 10am during peak game-planning hours at work.”
How about one more reality check? Out of the tens of millions of people who saw that clip, how many do you think will turn into a regular First Take viewer because of what they saw? And the truth is it’s driving people away from things that could really be celebrated like its HBCU tour and the way the program has introduced a ton of new stars from all kinds of walks of life at ESPN. There are some very positive stories to tell from First Take, but they become dwarfed by the need to feed the beast of Embrace Debate.
Instead, the conversation becomes about a seemingly random feud with Drake Maye, completely made up out of thin air, who is nothing more than the newest player in a game he didn’t choose to enter.
There is obviously an audience for First Take. There are hundreds of thousands of loyal viewers. But millions more who aren’t regular viewers see clips like this and wonder what has become of ESPN. Is it any wonder why the network’s relationship with sports fans is what it is?