'First Take' Devolves Into Screaming Mess Over Cowboys Winning Culture

Monday afternoon's edition of First Take featured a peak sports studio show discussion, but in all the bad ways. Stephen A. Smith, Shannon Sharpe, and Dan Orlovsky were tasked with analyzing some Jerry Jones quotes about the Dallas Cowboys from the NFL Combine last week. Specifically they zeroed in on Jones saying his team does not have a "culture problem" despite coming up short of the Super Bowl (or even the NFC Championship Game) over the last few yea`rs following great regular season play.

Orlovsky made the case that the Cowboys have a winning culture because they have won 12 games in three consecutive seasons. Smith and Sharpe were so baffled they started yelling at Orlovsky together. This went on for nearly three minutes of airtime as Orlovsky attempts to explain that a winning culture can still exist in Dallas despite a lack of Super Bowl victories this century.

It is, perhaps, the peak of everything wrong with sports talk television nowadays.

Unnecessary volume increases to literally out-shout the other guy and to add a heightened sense of drama? Check. A nebulous topic that does not have a right answer, any nuance, and is ultimately beyond meaningless? Also check. The Dallas Cowboys? Check! It's your basic recipe for ESPN daytime programming in today's day and age.

God, it's bleak. Isn't it? This is what the average segment is like on the Worldwide Leader now. It has been for a while so it's not like it's new but when you watch something like this and feel like you've seen it hundreds of times over the years it gets grating. This being the perfect storm of what ESPN feels the viewers desire makes the bleakness all the more apparent. This is where the networks perceive audience interest to be.

And they must be right in some regard! Ratings are up across the board for daytime programming at ESPN. That isn't the case across the industry. It's not like more people are watching sports talk. It's something about the ESPN formula that has led to some insane numbers in ratings land. So you can't really knock it.

But dammit I sure can be depressed about it. And I am. These shows are just engagement bait with every segment engineered to produce one or two social media clips that will get silly debates raging in the comments. At this point, that's the job. Everyone at ESPN does it really well now.

We used to be a proper country, is all I'm saying.