Part of his downfall was the Washington Redskins ‘Smurfs’ and one of them took off and Howard commented about ‘look at that monkey run’ and he was referring to Alvin Garrett.
Cossel later explained that he called his grandkids little monkeys all the time....
I don’t think he had a racist bone in his body, his action/reaction to Cassius Clay for example but he did make a decent ‘payday’ off him.
No one would ever have conceived of calling Cosell a racist. He made Clay (Mohammed Ali), and the reverse was also true. Before MNF, ABC had the Friday Night Fights (in an old stable on West 66th Street just off of Central Park West.) It worked perfectly for all of them - except the fight show. I don't remember why it ended.