Sports Commentator Apologizes For Insensitive Tweet Following Damar Hamlin's Cardiac Arrest

This week's Monday Night Football came to an abrupt halt when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field during the team's game against Cincinnati Bengals after taking a hit in the first quarter. The high-stakes game was immediately suspended before NFL officials announced the game would be officially postponed.

Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and is still in critical condition. He received 9 minutes of CPR on the field and was then transported to a hospital.

During those 9 minutes, the Twitterverse was flooded with messages rallying around Hamlin, many stating his well being is far more important than any game.

However, a tweet by Fox Sports commentator Skip Bayless did not send the same message.

During those minutes of the unknown following Hamlin's collapse, Bayless tweeted:

"No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game—but how?"

"This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome...which suddenly seems so irrelevant."

The backlash was swift.

In an attempt to clarify the intent of his original message, Bayless followed up:

"Nothing is more important than that young man's health. That was the point of my last tweet."

"I'm sorry if that was misunderstood but his health is all that matters."

"Again, everything else is irrelevant. I prayed for him & will continue to."

Bayless also made a statement Tuesday morning on Undisputed, noticeably sans co-host Shannon Sharpe.

Before starting the show, Bayless said it would proceed as usual but everyone is very much "wrecked" by the situation.

"Allow me to say upfront that I apologize for what we're going to set out to do here today if it offends anyone because we're going to try to do the show pretty much as we usually do the show."

"But I'll admit up front that I'm still shook up by what happened last night to Damar Hamlin. In fact, I'm still wrecked."

"In fact, I'm not sure I'm capable of doing this show today."

He continued:

"But after barely sleeping on it, I decided to give it a try."

"Maybe I'll fail. Maybe we will fail, but we're going to try."

"We wrestled through much of the night whether to even do a show today because it felt like, in our minds, we almost can't win with this."

"Because the last thing we want to try to do is come off as insensitive to what this young man is going through in a life or death situation."

"The last thing we want to do is offend anyone by trying to do what we always do, which is talk about sports."

You can watch his on-air apology below.

Some on Twitter defended Bayless, saying they understood what he was trying to say in his original tweet and also thanking him for acknowledging his mistake.

Many however, weren't as accepting of his apology.

Bayless continued by encouraging viewers to tweet their "emotions" about Hamlin's injury on Monday night and promised to read them throughout the "difficult morning."

Hamlin remains in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital.