Social media has ruined all forms of media. It used to be that journalists prided themselves on getting the facts. Once Twitter and Facebook broke out, they became the primary way that news breaks. You simply can't write an article fast enough or produce a TV segment fast enough to beat the speed of the internet.
Pretty soon the role of the mainstream media became confirming what's on twitter and a shift of focus from reporting news to having hot takes to get likes on twitter.
Social media is dominated by politically correct groups who pay for followers and make 10 people in a room look like 100,000 on twitter. It becomes a pretty simple thing to know what will lead to likes which are handed out as rewards for following the pre approved narrative.
Get on air and praise the "courage" of a player taking a knee and you are a social media darling for the day. The meanstream media then reflects and amplifies that because they want in on the approval.
You end up with a one time football guy like Gruden reduced to Pavlov'a dog, barking out the correct lines to gain a treat.