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Credit: Good Morning America on ABC; The Dan Le Batard Show
When former star NFL running back Chris Johnson shared the unfortunate details of his ALS diagnosis this week in an interview with Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, most viewers likely came away with a similar question.
Did football cause it?
Given the alarming rate at which former NFL players are diagnosed with neurological diseases, as well as the presence of Strahan in the interview, it was a reasonable assumption that the ABC show might address such a question.
But, as was first called out by longtime sports reporter Jeff Pearlman on TikTok, Strahan did not bring up such a possibility in the interview at all.
Backing up Pearlman on Tuesday, veteran sports host Dan Le Batard said on his show that Strahan owed it to the audience and the sports world to address the “elephant in the room.”
“Michael Strahan has a responsibility in that instance to ask some sort of football-related question, and he did not do it,” Le Batard said, adding that fans don’t “actually want to know.” “It’s just too uncomfortable. You just can’t enjoy that thing the way you do … when these guys are limping through their retirement homes to an early death.”
Le Batard, a respected interviewer who frequently critiques the work of other sports reporters, argued that seeking Johnson’s feelings about his football career in relation to his diagnosis is “not a hard-hitting question,” and likely one Johnson would be open to answering.
Further, Le Batard said, not asking Johnson the question undermines the very reason for his appearance on ABC in the first place.
“The only reason Chris Johnson is on there is not because he has the disease, it’s because he played football,” he explained.
“The reason Chris Johnson is being interviewed is because this is a former athlete of some name. They’re not interviewing random people with ALS, they’re interviewing this person. And so to neglect that question is an omission that I don’t know why the omission is there. And I’m curious. And if you ask the question, you remove the hole in your interview by just asking a question, if football had something to do with this.”
Le Batard added that in his experience, football players rarely regret their time playing in the league even as more research comes out about the game’s risks. However, Johnson’s openness in sitting for an interview gives the world a chance to hear the perspective of someone facing mortality, which could impact how current and future players approach their careers.
“Almost every football player I have ever talked to, no matter their condition, says they would do it all over again,” Le Batard said. “But I’m always asking before the nursing home. I’m always asking before the end.”
“I’d be genuinely curious what Chris Johnson’s answer is given the particular horrors of that disease, at his age.”
The post Dan Le Batard calls out Michael Strahan for not asking Chris Johnson if he thinks football caused his ALS appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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