I don’t know what the hell is going on at ESPN but I like it. I guess Disney slashed their budgets or something and they decided to jettison all the old money windbags who have polluted the network for years. Cowherd is gone. Skip Bayless is on the way out. Cris Carter is being replaced by Randy Moss. Ray Lewis is also getting kicked out. Mike Ditka is no longer on Monday Night Countdown. Meanwhile SVP has gotten a bigger role (SVP owns) and now we get Charles Woodson and Matt Hasselbeck on the game coverage. These are positive changes as far as I’m concerned. Now they just have to get rid of Stephen A. Smith and things will be great again.

First up, Skip Bayless. Skip is taking the exact route as Colon Cowturd (See what I did there? I’m clever) and not getting his contract renewed and will apparently end up at Fox Sports 1. Remember when FS1 was going to be the “hip” and “cool” alternative to ESPN? Now they are literally just ESPN’s old garbage given new life. I’m fine with it, it’s nice that all the boogers of Bristol are getting flicked into the same crusty kleenex. Keeps them contained. Jason Whitlock is intolerable. Colin Cowherd is the gum you step in on your walk but don’t realize until you look at your shoe until later. Now Skip Bayless, the world’s biggest douche troll, can go to the nice farm upstate where he belongs so we can remember the good times. I never really hated Skip Bayless, personally. I mean, I didn’t like him, but meh. I never watched first take and mostly just accepted that Skip’s entire reason to exist was to give scorching hot takes meant to piss people off. He got mad money and mad attention by basically being the guy who walks into a bar full of idiots, says something to incite a ruckus, and then grins like an asshole when a fight breaks out. He was freakishly good at it and people still share his old tweets that ended up being wrong like he gives the slightest shit. You didn’t get the last laugh on Bayless by pointing out he was wrong about Manziel, he was laughing at you from the start.

As for Cris Carter, he was a big ol’ turd. I didn’t quite hate him but I found him annoying. His incessant whining every year he didn’t get inducted into the hall of fame really turned me off and I was hoping he’d never get voted in just to spite his whiny baby face. I liked it when he said Calvin Johnson wasn’t elite and then Calvin Johnson took him to school. At least he owned up to being wrong. Carter could have stayed on and I’d have been mostly fine with it, but Randy Moss is awesome so get out, Graduel. (That’s his real name)

I might be the happiest about Ray Lewis leaving. Ray Lewis added absolutely nothing to ESPN and it’s telling because of how quickly they ousted him. He’d wear stupid hats and spend his entire time preaching and passionately screaming nonsense at the cameras while the rest of the hosts would awkwardly sit there waiting for him to finish his latest butt powered word-jumble. I haven’t even heard a politician who could say as little so passionately as Ray Lewis. I would turn the channel during segments that featured Lewis simply because of how terrible he was to listen to. Now instead of Father McCoverUpMurder we get Charles Woodson (YAY! Charles is the best!) and Matt Hasselbeck, who is legitimately an awesome guy and always funny.

Seriously ESPN fire Stephen A. Smith and I might genuinely like you again.