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Former ESPN star Trey Wingo wants to set the record straight.
Former NFL linebacker and former ESPN analyst Emmanuel Acho claimed that Ryan Clark made ESPN’s “NFL Live” the “masculine” it is today, and Wingo was having none of it.
“Ryan Clark made NFL Live the juggernaut it is today (with Rutledge, Mina and Spears), he didn’t. idea NFL Live, there is a difference,” Acho posted.
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Trey Wingo attends the first round of the American Century Championship on July 10, 2026 at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Stateline, Nevada. (Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Wingo, who hosted “NFL Live” for 15 years, from 2003 to 2018, applauded Acho’s claim that Clark built the show by posting a graph showing his ratings over the years, which he said disproved Acho’s claim.
The chart, based on figures reported by ESPN, shows that “NFL Live” averaged 688,000 viewers during a comparable early-season period in 2013 and 624,000 in 2012. It averaged about 486,000 in 2015, 492,000 in 2016, 449,000 in 2021 and 440,000 in 2025.
Wingo captioned his post on X: “May your apology be as strong as your disrespect. “I think someone said that once.”
The former ESPN host’s line about letting your apology be as loud as your disrespect was in reference to an argument in which Acho insulted former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel and later apologized to him.
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Emmanuel Acho speaks on stage at the ADL Never Is Now Summit at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York on March 17, 2026. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for ADL)
Acho’s initial tweet was in response to OutKick’s Dan Zaksheske. Zaksheske began the interaction thread by responding to a clip from “The Breakfast Club,” in which the morning show hosts said Clark built “NFL Live.”
“NFL Live premiered in 1998 when Clark was 18, four years before entering the NFL and 17 years before joining ESPN,” Zaksheske wrote on X.
Acho responded to Zaksheske and agreed with “The Breakfast Club”, saying “And no one watched NFL Live back then”, referring to the show’s existence before Clark joined it.
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ESPN is parting ways with longtime NFL analyst Ryan Clark after 11 years with the network. (Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Wingo spent nearly 23 years at ESPN and was not retained as of November 2020.
Much of his tenure was spent hosting and creating “NFL Live”, and was the host during its peak year in 2013.
Clark joined ESPN in 2015 and spent more than 11 seasons with the network, overlapping for about five years with Wingo. As his time at ESPN progressed, he became an increasingly polarizing figure.
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PK Press Club Digital reached out to Acho for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
