Heres a quote from Tom Jackson on the incident. He was emotional like you said. But like I remember, he felt he didn’t do enough.
JACKSON: An emotional Tom Jackson spoke next: "Much has been made about the fact that we did not speak out this week. I want you to know that no one prevented us from speaking. We chose this forum, our show. Let me just say, it was not our decision to have Rush Limbaugh on this show. I've seen replay after replay of Limbaugh's comments with my face attached, as well as that of my colleagues. Comments that made us very uncomfortable at the time, although the depth and the insensitive nature of which weren't fully felt until it seemed too late to reply. Rush Limbaugh is known for the divisive nature of his rhetoric. He creates controversy, and what he said Sunday is the same type of thing that he said on radio for years. A player in this league, who has a young son, called me this week, and his son now wants to know if it's all right for blacks to play quarterback. Rush Limbaugh's comments could not have been more hurtful. He was brought in to talk football, and he broke that trust. Rush told us that the social commentary for which he is so well known would not cross over to our show, and instead he would represent the viewpoint of the intelligent, passionate fan. We know of few fans, passionate or otherwise, who see Donovan McNabb ... somehow artificially hyped because of the color of his skin. The fact that Donovan McNabb's skin color was brought up at all was wrong, especially in the context of the brotherhood that we feel we have on this show. ... Limbaugh was not a fit for 'NFL Countdown.'"
This part I agree with... Tom didn't do enough at the moment... but people also have to remember that shit happened in 2003, before the #metoo standup Social medial era that we were are in now.
Here is an Article from 2003....
Jackson hits Limbaugh hard
Ed ShermanCHICAGO TRIBUNE
It now has become fairly obvious that Tom Jackson is the main reason
Rush Limbaugh suddenly is free on Sundays.
Jackson delivered a seething speech on "Sunday
NFL Countdown." He didn't hold back on how he felt about the Limbaugh issue.
Apparently, he expressed the same views privately to ESPN executives Wednesday.
Jackson, who is black, made it clear he wasn't going to stand for Limbaugh returning to the show. ESPN did the right thing or it would have lost Jackson, a 17-year veteran of "Countdown."
Jackson was the focus of Sunday's program as ESPN tried to get past Limbaugh's remarks about Philadelphia quarterback
Donovan McNabb being overrated because the media wanted to push a black quarterback. Instead of going with his usual bombastic opening, Chris Berman was contrite at the start of the show.
After showing a Bob Ley report detailing the controversy, Berman said, "I never looked at Donovan McNabb as a black quarterback ever ... ever."
Berman then turned over the stage to Jackson. The former
Denver Broncos linebacker displayed a controlled rage, but it's doubtful the Raiders ever got his blood boiling hotter.
"It was not our idea to have Rush on the show," Jackson said. He went on to chastise Limbaugh.
"Rush told us the social commentary for which he is so well known would not cross over to our show," Jackson said. "He would represent the viewpoint of the intelligent fan. He was brought in to talk football, and he broke that trust. Rush was not a fit for `NFL Countdown.'"
What pushed Jackson over the top was a call he received from a current player. That player's son wanted to know if it still was all right for him to be a quarterback.
"Rush Limbaugh's comments could not have been more hurtful," Jackson said.
Jackson's fellow panelists supported him.
"Rush's mistake was that he refused to recognize the quarterback position has been blind to color in the last 20 years," former quarterback Steve Young said.
The other portion of the segment dealt with how the panelists failed to address Limbaugh's remarks head-on during the show Sept. 28. They discussed it only in football terms and never challenged the racial element of the statement.
Berman said he "had been kicking himself all week" for not stepping in. Young added: "Everyone at ESPN missed it."
"I've asked myself a thousand times, `How could this happen?'" Jackson said. "When Rush made his statement, I started to think in football terms. Do I wish I had caught it? Absolutely. Mostly I regret it for Donovan McNabb's sake."
One of the show's competitors was quick to pile on.
Terry Bradshaw of "Fox NFL Sunday" noted if he had said something as ridiculous on his program, it wouldn't have taken a week for one of his fellow panelists "to chastise me." He said it would have happened immediately on the show.
However, the most salient remark on the reaction issue probably came from Jim Nantz on CBS' "NFL Today."
"I thought there was one thing that was very bizarre," Nantz said. "This went unnoticed and unchallenged for 48 hours on the set, in the building, in the newspapers. Where were all the people out there for the first 48 hours? Why did it take so long before the PC police stood up and really went in and challenged this?"
Nantz's point lets ESPN off the hook just a bit. The story didn't explode nationally until Wednesday, only after the Philadelphia media stirred it up. So more news media than ESPN were guilty.
Once the scope of Limbaugh's remarks sunk in, the reaction was swift and harsh.
After spending the opening 10 minutes on the issue, "Countdown" broke for a commercial. When the show returned, it was back to football.
The panelists seemed relieved to have the controversy behind them. They certainly didn't miss Limbaugh, and you know what? Neither did the viewers.
Copyright © 2019,
Chicago Tribune
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-10-06-0310060154-story.html
It does look like Tom jackson was one of the reasons why Rush kicked out.
