It is With a Heavy Heart We Report ESPN is Canceling Cliff Kellerman's Show
It's hard to believe so much time has gone by since Max Kellerman first began to lean into his Tom Brady "Cliff Theory." As a matter of fact, we're almost two months from it hitting its 7th anniversary:
And Kellerman stuck by it longer than Einstein did his Stationary Universe Theory, despite it being proven so utterly, completely, and irredeemably wrong so many times. All Brady did since Cliff Kellerman first floated this hypothesis was win three Super Bowls, two Super Bowl MVPs, a regular season MVP, and lead the league in passing yards twice. And when he finally did go off his version of a cliff, that took the shape of a season in which he threw 25 touchdown passes to just nine interceptions, and broke the all time NFL record for pass attempts and completions. Records he himself had set the season before. We should all be so accomplished that our decline is still better than of the best of 99.99% of the rest of our profession has ever been able to achieve.
So it is ironic, though thoroughly sad, that mere months after Brady finally fulfilled the prophecy, that Kellerman himself is getting a hard lesson on the Law of Career Gravity, courtesy of his bosses at the Worldwide Leader:
Source - Max Kellerman’s “This Just In” TV show could be the first victim of ESPN’s big bucks Pat McAfee hire.
ESPN will likely pave the way for the addition of “The Pat McAfee Show” by canceling Kellerman’s weekday afternoon program, sources told Front Office Sports. …
Kellerman’s show currently airs on the flagship channel from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET.
It would cruel and unnecessary to pile on by pointing out that Brady slid down the slight decline of his cliff, landed on his feet, walked gentle into that good night under his own power, and straight into a $375 million deal with Fox, while Max was fucking pushed. So let's not mention it.
Instead, let me state I am saddened by this news, not gladdened. It's always disheartening to see a man lose his job, even when he's working for a network that has been drowning in red ink and needs to dump $30 million in salaries. To take joy in such a sad state of affairs would be to invite the worst kind of karma.
So instead, let's look at this as a positive. At least Stephen A. Smith is finally rid of the former co-host who almost left him in a mental institution, permanently impaired:
Perhaps saddest of all? I think I can speak for hundreds of millions when I say I forgot Kellerman even had a show on ESPN. It certainly wasn't generating anything you could remotely consider buzz. So it's not likely his departure will get any attention either. Like the old philosophical question goes, when a sports talk show host gets shoved off a cliff and no one is watching him splatter on the rocks below, does he make a sound?
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P.S. I just hope ESPN sends Cliff to Foxboro to cover the Brady celebration:
It just wouldn't be the same without him.