Stephen A. Smith Slams Banned Denver Post Reporter for ‘Offensive’ Writing About Deion Sanders: ‘Your Attacks Seem Personal’

Stephen A. Smith believes The Denver Post reporter Sean Keeler bears some responsibility in Colorado’s decision to no longer take questions from him.

The university last week announced that members of its football program would not take questions from him due to the nature of his reporting on coach Deion Sanders. In its statement, the university explicitly accused Keeler of taking personal shots.

That decision has led to a great deal of outrage, with multiple members of the media criticizing the university for effectively banning Keeler from participating in press conferences.

On Monday’s episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show, Smith said that although he agreed it was a bad look for Sanders, he understood why it happened.

“If you are Keeler, here’s the bottom line: your attacks seem personal, off-putting, offensive, et cetera,” Smith said. “In the case of ‘Primetime’ Deion Sanders, his mentality is, ‘Talk about me all you want to. Talk about my football program all you want to.’ But this guy has gotten personal, and he’s gotten very, very personal; and you talk to people close to Deion, they say Keeler says he’s doing what he’s done, in terms of eviscerating the program, because it’s good for his bottom line — particularly monetarily. These are the kinds of things that they’ve indicated about him.

“I know that in the streets of Denver, Colorado, he is considered a negative individual. Make no mistake about that. And he certainly hasn’t had much positive to say. And Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes football program, in fairness, haven’t given much to celebrate — not to say that he would if they did, but, nevertheless, they haven’t.”

Smith also said that he disagreed with the university getting involved and punishing Keeler. Sanders making the personal decision to avoid his questions, however, would have been acceptable to him.

“When you are a reporter, when you are a columnist, when you are a pundit, and you rub people the wrong way, sometimes they’re not gonna talk to you,” Smith continued. “Sometimes they’re gonna tell you to kiss their ass. That comes with it. We get it, we understand it, and we take it; but when a program invokes itself into the equation and they take the initiative to say, ‘Well, we’re going to support and co-sign and sponsor off on what the coach is doing,’ that’s problematic because now we get into questions [like], ‘Well, what is fair criticism?’ ‘What is crossing the line?'”

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