Paul Finebaum remains a prominent piece of ESPN’s coverage as a host and analyst on the SEC Network. Unfortunately, he watched as a number of colleagues were laid off in widespread cuts by the Worldwide Leader on Friday.

Included in those cuts were longtime pieces of College GameDay in David Pollack and Gene Wojciechowski. Todd McShay — a notable NFL Draft expert — and other notable NFL and NBA names were also included in the layoffs.

Finebaum made an appearance on The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast episode that was released Wednesday to address the weekend of layoffs. He didn’t hide the fact it was an awful day for the network and his colleagues and noted ESPN is still a special place to work but said the business aspect “can be cruel” at times.

“It’s pretty tough, and I say that loving my job and loving the company,” Finebaum said. “But it was the worst day in my 10 years at ESPN. I can’t explain Bob [Iger’s] thinking. I think you have to trust his track record, but it doesn’t really excuse the state of mind that a lot of us, if not all of us, were in.

“And I say as an employee nobody knew Friday. Especially those of us who were on the air whether we would be around at the end of the day. I’ll spare you a lot of the things that have been said on Twitter and on social media because (ESPN) is a special place to work. But it can be cruel, and I think because most of the names were very well-known — far better than mine — there’s a chirping out there, there’s a lot of schadenfreude from hey, look what happened to him or to her but it still hurts.”

Finebaum went on to explain the layoffs can make you angry, but the moves have to be seen ultimately as a business decision:

“Does it make you angry? Yes, but who can you be angry with? The people who were let go, they weren’t taken off the air because they were inefficient or incompetent, Finebaum explained. “It was a business decision. That’s the part that you have to understand when you work there, there’s good and there’s bad.”

Here’s the full episode of the Marchand and Ourand Podcast, comments begin around the 8:45 mark: