Michele Tafoya was on The View last month where she clashed with one of their hosts by making completely sensible and appropriate arguments that counter some of the things Kaepernick has said and done. She also had more ‘conservative’ views on things like CRT that probably didn’t sit well with her liberal bosses.
And that appears to have been the beginning of the end for her career as a sideline reporter on NBC’s Sunday Night Football:
FOX NEWS – Michele Tafoya will no longer be the sideline reporter for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” after this season, according to a report.
NBC’s coverage of the upcoming Super Bowl in February is expected to be her final appearance on the sideline for the network, the New York Post reported. Her role afterward remained unclear.
The apparent decision comes several weeks after Tafoya was criticized for making comments about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick during an appearance on ABC’s “The View.”
Tafoya returned to NBC for a few games after “The View,” but has been missing from NBC’s NFL coverage since Thanksgiving Night’s game between the Buffalo Bills and New Orleans Saints.
Her absence was described by NBC as “bye weeks” as speculation swirled that something might be amiss in the relationship between Tafoya and the network, the Post reported.
Sports analyst Bill Simmons drew attention to Tafoya’s prolonged absence earlier this week on his podcast.
“She was in the conservative seat,” Simmons said about Tafoya’s “View” appearance, “Then a couple weeks later, all of a sudden, just on a bye [from NBC]. Taking a break.”
On Nov. 3, she and the co-hosts of “The View” had a debate about Kaepernick around the time that Netflix released a special titled “Colin in Black and White.”
Tafoya and “View” co-host Sunny Hostin clashed on the show about some comments Kaepernick had made, comparing the NFL’s draft and training camps to slavery.
Tafoya argued that playing in the NFL was an act of free will.
“No one pressures them,” she said. “They’re not forced to go into the NFL.”
Later, she added, “I thought comparing it to the slave trade was a little rough. … These guys enter willingly. They are the most well-cared-for people. Yes, they play a hard sport, and every one of them – Black, White, Latino, whoever’s playing the sport – will tell you how much they love it and they’re willing to do it and they make a damn good living.”
Hostin countered that most NFL owners are White men and most players are Black.
“That comparison that he makes to slave owners and slaves is not, sort of, totally unreasonable or out of bounds,” she said.
She asserted that it was the league’s White owners who were preventing Kaepernick from continuing his NFL career after the 2016 season, when he launched pre-game kneeling protests of racial injustice during the playing of the national anthem. After the 2016 season, Kaepernick exercised an opt-out clause in his contract with the San Francisco 49ers and became a free agent. No NFL team signed him afterward.
Hostin also argued that Kaepernick “lost everything” by taking a stand on a cause that he believed in but Tafoya countered by noting that Kaepernick had actually “gained a lot” since leaving the NFL, including the Netflix special and a lucrative deal with sports apparel company Nike.
I love everything Tafoya said and nothing was out of bounds or unreasonable. She didn’t cross any lines or make any crazy remarks. But for some reason, her liberal NBC bosses can’t handle her common sense and sidelined her for three weeks.
Now it’s suddenly being revealed that this is her last season with SNF after a three week absence. And the New York Post is reporting, via their sources, that it is Tafoya’s decision to leave.
Yeah, right.
I know she’s been doing this for nearly three decades and that she’s 56 years old. But none of this smells right to me. My guess is that her liberal bosses wanted her out immediately but, because of contractual obligations, they likely can’t just oust her because she didn’t do anything wrong. So they reached a settlement with her for this to be her last season and now they can say ‘it was her decision’. Again, that’s my speculation and maybe we’ll learn what really happened at some point in the future. But it seems blatantly obvious to me that it’s her recently outed ‘conservatism’ that is the reason for all of this.
You can watch her go rounds with The View hosts below if you like: