There were a lot of people that burned him online for his essay, not just a football player. If a bunch of people accuse you of the same thing, at some point you have to start blaming yourself instead of blaming others.
I think it's impossible to write a bulletproof article, even something longer form, unless it says something trivial like "the sky is blue on some days". Even then, someone form Beijing would argue ;)
PG chose a really difficult subject, tried like a developer to break it down into constituent parts, and got criticized as if he was saying the problem didn't exist, rather than it is more than one thing. I think that is criticism that he can build dialogue on (a positive), rather than a flaw in the original article.
Thus, this has nothing to do with pg's actual words. This is all based on the current groupthink about inequality.
Example:
> [PG] thinks that those concerned with income inequality want communist style income equality.
Nope - none of what PG said in his essay comes anywhere close to making that characterization of his opposition, and yet many people have attacked PG as if his view was this view, and other equally outlandish, baseless interpretations of what he actually said. They've said things like, "PG is blaming the poor for being lazy", which is not anything remotely like what he said.
The people who wish to criticize PG's essay or otherwise respond to it would do well to simply quote his words directly and respond to the quote. What's actually happening is that people are projecting emotionally charged beliefs onto PG, and claiming that he said things or believes things he doesn't and that weren't in the essay, and then attacking those made up, straw-man ideas instead. It's really disappointing and frustrating for me to watch.