Stephen A Smith broke his First Take hiatus on Monday for a very compelling reason. Apparently, the renowned ESPN broadcaster could not stand back and watch everything surrounding Cleveland Browns star quarterback Deshaun Watson and his recently-issued six-game suspension unfold without giving his two cents worth. Stephen A said he was going to be out until mid-August, but he just had to break his own word for this.

As it turns out, Smith's surprise comeback was well worth it. Stephen A came out with an all too familiar tirade against the NFL for what he believes to be a mistake. In his mind, Smith is keeping it simple. He just cannot fathom how Watson comes out of this scandal seemingly unscathed (h/t Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing):

“The simple fact that Deshaun Watson found himself in this situation,” Smith began. “If you’re the National Football League, ‘OK, you’ve impugned the shield because you brought this unwanted attention to our brand and as a result, that is the reason we want to hand down whatever suspension it is that we want to hand down.’ Because the NFL has been trying to make amends for their dereliction of duty as it pertained to Ray Rice, they’ve gone the route of, as far as I’m concerned, trying to resemble law enforcement.

“The NFL has gone through extraordinary lengths to try to do what law enforcement is supposed to do. That’s my problem with all of this. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. There is no way in hell that Deshaun Watson can claim complete innocence. But to be fair to him, he has ADAMANTLY expressed the fact that he has been innocent of this.”

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In the end, Smith stated that he strongly feels that this was NOT the right decision by the NFL:

“I think they’ve made a huge mistake by trying to resemble law enforcement and it’s going to come back to haunt them in a very big way,” he said.

Smith does make a compelling argument here. Be that as it may, the hammer has been laid down, so to speak. There's not much else that can be done now that the league has made its decision.

Well, Deshaun Watson could actually appeal his punishment. Who knows, the league might even decide to further lighten his sentence if he does.