ESPN Host: Josh Rosen Would Rather Play In NY Than Cleveland Because He’s A Jew
UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen sets to pass against the University of Hawaii at the Rose Bowl, September 9, 2017. Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink April 8, 2018
Two separate ESPN radio shows implied last week that top football prospect Josh Rosen would rather play in New York than Cleveland because of his Jewish background, The Big Lead reported.
Rosen, a quarterback who attended UCLA, is expected to be one of the top picks in the upcoming NFL Draft. The Cleveland Browns have the first pick by virtue of being last year’s worst team. Rosen has had to deny frequent reports that he does not want to play in Cleveland.
After Rosen’s former college coach, Jim Mora, said that the Browns should take a different quarterback rather than Rosen with their pick, ESPN radio host Stephen A. Smith theorized that Mora “may have been doing it to dissuade the Cleveland Browns from picking him because Josh Rosen, according to my sources, would prefer to be in New York. He’s Jewish, there’s a stronger Jewish community, he’d rather be in the New York market than the Cleveland market, blah blah blah. We don’t know, but it’s some of the things that we’ve heard.”
The New York Giants and Jets have the second and third picks in the draft.
Hosts of ESPN L.A.’s morning show also theorized that New York would be a better fit for Rosen because of its large Jewish community, which would help his local popularity.
Rosen’s father is Jewish but his mother is a Quaker. Josh Rosen had a Bar Mitzvah but attended a Catholic high school, when he told a reporter that he was “kind of an atheist.”
The New York metro area has the largest Jewish community in the country, with over two million Jews, according to the Jewish Virtual Library. There are approximately 80,000 Jews in the Cleveland area.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
