Every once in a while, a former star quarterback says something so confidently and so dramatically wrong, that it somehow becomes impressive. That’s what happened this week when Cam Newton — NFL MVP turned content creator and funny hat wearer — decided Cam Skattebo was the problem with today’s game.
Skattebo, the New York Giants' fourth-round rookie out of Arizona State, recently appeared on the St. Brown Bros podcast and struggled to recognize pictures of NFL legends like Calvin Johnson and Brett Favre. It was a harmless segment where he missed some faces and fans laughed — deservedly so. That could have easily been the end of it. But Newton took the clip and ran with it (pun intended), accusing Skattebo and players like him of not being fans of football.
“They not fans of the game,” Newton said about Skattebo's generation on 4th&1 With Cam Newton. “These kids—they playing video games all day."
Giants rookie Cam Skattebo targeted by Cam Newton in over-the-top rant
For starters, Skattebo wasn’t dodging any homework assignment. He just couldn’t match a name to a face. He knew of the players — he just didn’t recognize them in headshots from years ago. That’s not exactly a disqualifier for being a student of the game. He was born in 2002. Some of these guys were out of the league before he got his learner’s permit.
Newton piled on by claiming Skattebo’s generation gets all their football knowledge from YouTube. And if only he could see the irony in that statement because it is objectively hilarious. — Newton made the comments... on YouTube. The full clip is right below:
So while he’s yelling at “kids these days” for watching too much YouTube, he’s doing it on YouTube, for an audience of YouTube viewers, hoping to drive up YouTube views. The hypocrisy and irony should not be lost on you. Oh, and how could I forget, Newton watched the video via the St. Brown Bros YouTube channel. Sometimes you just have to call it how you see it. This is laugh-out-loud ridiculous.
New York drafted Skattebo to punch holes in defenses, not ace a pop quiz on mid-2000s receiver depth charts. Some of the players he had to guess were Golden Tate and Marques Colston. Like, come on, man. What are we even complaining about? It’s much easier to remember who those players were and what teams they played for than to recognize their faces.
Skatt had 1,700 rushing yards and 34 touchdowns last year at ASU. If he does half that in the NFL as a rookie, Newton might want to learn more about his game and remember his face.
No one’s pretending Skattebo’s performance on the podcast was impressive. It was a hilarious nightmare perfect for podcast content. But Newton’s meltdown over it? That was the real squirm. The Giants have a rookie trying to earn his spot. Newton’s got a mic and a platform, and somehow he still found a way to be the least relevant Cam in this story.