On Saturday, former NFL safety and current ESPN analyst Jason Kelce gave a troll more than the troll bargained for: grab his phone and smash it after the troll did what trolls often do. The video went viral.

Overwhelmingly, Kelce’s actions were defended and supported. We haven’t seen any criticism of Kelce from anyone.

Kelce nevertheless chose to publicly apologize in the opening moments of the incident Countdown on Monday evening prior to the Buccaneers-Chiefs game.

“I think everyone on social media saw everything that happened this week,” Kelce said, via AwfulAnnouncing.com. “Listen, I’m not…I’m not happy with what happened. I’m not proud of it and, you know, in a heated moment, I have chosen to greet hate with hateand I just don’t think that’s productive. No way.

“I don’t think it creates a discourse, and that’s – and it’s the right way to go about things. And at that moment I fell to a level that I shouldn’t have. So I think the bottom line is, I want to live my life – I try to live my life by the golden rule. That’s what I was always taught. I try to treat people with common decency and respect, and I’m going to continue to do that in the future, even though I fell short this week, I’m going to do that in the future and continue to do that.

“So yeah, I think we have a game to focus on. Obviously the matchup, I don’t think this is the platform to necessarily go into more depth, so. So let’s get ready for this Chiefs game.

There is undoubtedly an interesting story to be told about how the apology came about, why it happened where it happened, and who created and vetted what he said.

Again, no one asked for an apology. Many who signed up for this Countdown on Monday evening maybe didn’t even know about it. For them, the apology would have caused confusion.

It was still an impressive gesture. We need more redemption, forgiveness and reconciliation. We will certainly need more of those things tomorrow, or once one of the most divisive elections in the country’s history is finally resolved.