On Wednesday I passed along the rankings of the league’s best offensive trios that Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com put together and that included him having the Pittsburgh Steelers threesome of Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell sitting No. 1 overall. On the Thursday morning edition of ‘First Take’, analysts Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith discussed Barnwell’s rankings and the two had a difference in opinion as to which trio should be ranked on top.
Bayless, a well-known fan of the Dallas Cowboys, believes Tony Romo, Dez Bryant and rookie Ezekiel Elliott should be ranked as the best offensive trio currently in the league. He did, however, justify that choice with a ton of ifs.
“I’m about to if you to death because it applies to this list,” Bayless explained to Smith. “Obviously, if Tony Romo is healthy for 16 games this year, Dez Bryant is healthy for 16 games and God bless Zeke the Freak, if Ezekiel Elliott stays healthy as a rookie for 16 games, I have no doubt that my “Cowgirls”, as Molly [Qerim] calls them, will have the best big-three in all of football.”
Smith wasn’t impressed with Bayless’ argument one bit and even less impressed with it when his co-host brought the quality of the Cowboys offensive line into the discussion to defend him thinking that Elliot would be more productive than Bell in 2016.
“Even behind Dallas’ offensive line, Le’Veon Bell will still be more valuable,” Smith told Bayless.
While Smith never said specifically whether or not he would have the Steelers trio of Roethlisberger, Brown and Bell ranked first overall, by all appearances Thursday morning he does and he definitely has them ranked higher than Romo, Bryant and Elliot.
After watching the segment, Brown took to Twitter to deliver his thoughts on why he thinks Bayless ranked the Cowboys trio over the Steelers ‘Killer Bs’ and he believes Bell’s recent dissing of Bayless in his latest rap single may have something to do with it.
Later in the discussion between Bayless and Smith the former decided to double-down and bet that Elliot would wind up registering more combined yards than Bell will in 2016. Bell should definitely make a mental note of that for a future song after the 2016 season is over.
If you are interested in watching the entire segment from this morning I have included it for you below.
