Skip Bayless no doubt thought he was being hilarious.
Quinnen Williams doesn't think so, and he's publicly called out the columnist and TV talking head to let him know.
The 28-year-old defensive tackle, one of the few bright spots on an otherwise disappointing defensive roster for the 3-5 Cowboys, took to social media to address Bayless in the wake of the team's latest loss, a 33-30 overtime stunner to the lowly Cardinals, who were led by a backup quarterback and third-string running back on Sunday in front of a Cowboys home crowd.
"You got to do better my guy," the four-time Pro Bowler wrote, in part, on X.
The clash came as a result of Bayless's appearance on ESPN's First Take on Thursday. The onetime Dallas Morning News scribe and author of several
sensational books documenting the franchise's collapse in the late 1980s and dynasty days of the 1990s was responding to a Q&A session from Williams in which the former first-round draft pick repeatedly explained to reporters that he and his Cowboys teammates simply needed to "execute" in order to turn their season around.
"We've got to execute," Williams said, per the team website. "We haven't been executing this whole season. We executed for three quarters, and didn't execute that last quarter, and the film says it all. I think the biggest thing we've got to focus on is execute, and continue to stack days. At the end of the day, we've got to execute."
Bayless saw an opening, harping on Williams's word choice, and he took it.
"Quinnen Williams, in a five-minute interview, used the word 'execute' 32 times in five minutes," he said in an exchange with Stephen A. Smith. "And I must tell you that during Sunday's collapse against the Arizona freaking Cardinals, I wanted to execute several of my players during the game," Bayless said. "Execute them on the field. I wanted them to be executed."
@RealSkipBayless it’s extremely crazy to say you wanted players on defense to be executed. You got to do better my guy 🙏🏽 https://t.co/kyYmZlPkaG
— Quinnen Williams (@QuinnenWilliams) November 5, 2026
"@RealSkipBayless it's extremely crazy to say you wanted players on defense to be executed. You got to do better my guy," Williams posted Thursday in response.
Indeed.
Bayless, if he eventually expresses regret at all over the comments, will likely claim it was just a joke.
But it's not even an original joke.
The 74 year-old recycled the line from an infamous anecdote about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' first head coach, John McKay. According to the oft-repeated tale, which supposedly took place during the Bucs' first few years as a struggling expansion franchise, McKay was supposedly asked by a reporter about his team's execution.
The story goes that the outspoken McKay snapped back, "I'm all for it."
Or, "I'm in favor of it." Or maybe even, "I think it's a good idea."
It all depends on who is telling the story.
That's because research has discovered no hard evidence from the time that McKay ever actually delivered any version of the line, which is a derivative of an old Marx Brothers joke and even an older newspaper cartoon dating back to the 19th century.
The bigger problem for Bayless, though, in recycling the urban legend's gag, is that times have changed dramatically... certainly since the 19th century, and even since the mid-to-late-1970s, when McKay supposedly made the wisecrack. In modern society, a snarky joke about murdering football players is in astonishingly poor taste, even for a shock-jock hot-take hack like Bayless.
Careers have ended over far less.
Even more damning is that Bayless's crude attempt at edgy analysis came the day before the one-year anniversary of the passing of Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland, who died by suicide on Nov. 6, 2025. Head coach Brian Schottenheimer said that the Cowboys have had internal discussions about the anniversary and would be honoring Kneeland's memory privately, with commemorations that would take place away from the public eye.
It's all the more unfortunate, then, that Bayless chose to put such a tasteless and thoughtless remark into a public forum, no matter what he may think about the Cowboys' performance on the field.
Good for Williams for being an upstanding locker-room leader and continuing to play solid defense against a very different kind of offensive attack.
Todd is on X at @ToddBrock24f7. Also, follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: 'Do better': Cowboys' Quinnen Williams smacks down Skip Bayless for appalling ESPN rant
