College football analyst Peter Burns sheepishly apologised to colleague Ben Watson after making a joke about the former NFL tight end’s wife.
On Saturday, the SEC Network saw tensions rise when Burns cracked a joke about Watson’s wife. A clip of the incident went viral on social media, with Watson - who played for the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens across his career - walking off set and appeared visibly upset.
The incident occurred on the show of the SEC’s halftime show during the Florida-Vanderbilt contest, with Burns suggesting Watson hadn’t got ‘the memo’ about wearing dark suits. It appeared to be an innocent joke given Chris Doering and Takeo Spikes were both wearing dark-coloured suits.
Watson, who donned a light blue suit with a pink tie, went along with the light-hearted chat and said: “As long as I get a text from my wife [Kirsten Watson] that says I look good. Send me the text, baby. Send me the text.”
Burns then remarkably chimed in and ruffled feathers as he said: “That’s not the text she said me!”
The broadcast then cut to highlights of Vanderbilt’s eventual 31-24 win over Florida, and when the show returned from a commercial break, Doering and Spikes were left alone at the desk with Burns and Watson’s chairs vacant. As Watson returned to his seat, Doering said: “Just you and I here, Takeo, not sure what happened to Peter Burns.”
Doering jokingly asked Watson if he had made Burns keep his wife’s name out of his mouth, and the former NFL star slammed his phone on the table. With Spikes laughing, Doering quipped: “We’ll see how Peter Burns is with that smart mouth in the second half.”
Later in the day, Burns tweeted a selfie with Watson and appeared to have made up, although the latter reposted the image and insisted his colleague owed his wife a public apology. On Monday, he got it his wish.
“While it was a joke, the truth is that I crossed the line, you should never joke about family so that I owe a public apology to Ben & Kirsten 100%,” Burns wrote on Twitter. “@BenjaminSWatson couldn’t have handled it better with his humor and class.
“We all good & proud to call him a friend & coworker.”
Watson then reposted Burns’ tweet, and wrote: “Apology accepted. We are moving on. See you Saturday man. We have some big games to discuss!”
