Next week, Ben and I (and possibly Joe) are going to have a podcast where we talk about the Super Bowl after the dust has settled. But for now, we’ve had half a week to think about the Super Bowl, and I think it is time to talk about press conferences.
Cam Newton behaved like most expected him to. He played with emotion, and when it didn’t go his way, he quit. He didn’t jump on a fumble because he was afraid of injury. He didn’t last too long in the press conference because he was tired of hearing Chris Harris, Jr., literally right behind him, answering happy questions about how easily they stopped Cam. He gave the legion of Newton Nukers (trademark pending) a ton of fuel in their hot take effigies of the 26 year old from Auburn.
I actually had someone tell me “it didn’t bother me that he fell on the ground. It bothered me that he rolled in bounds, which could potentially disrupt play.”
…Sure?
So for the past few days, the response has been joyous from Schaedenfreude fans who wanted to see Cam fail, and the arguments have almost been solid. “Plays like a child,” “wasn’t professional,” “needs to take a cue from other quarterbacks on how to handle himself.”
Other quarterbacks like Peyton Manning?
You know, that guy who played worse than Newton in the game, got a kiss from a corporate sponsor before his wife, and dodged questions about retirement by mentioning Budweiser for literally no reason at all?
The response to Peyton’s postgame behavior has been largely comical. We laugh at him for these things, but there’s no malice behind it like the criticism agianst Cam. It’s more of a, “oh look at Peyton, just being a corporate stooge like always! I love that guy!”
And that’s what it comes down to in all of this. Neither Cam nor Peyton were particularly professional in their postgame celebrations. But Cam will always get more blame than Peyton. Why?
Cam Haters to Cam
And that’s okay! It’s okay to dislike Cam. It’s okay to be put off by his celebrations and his sulking. I’m a Newton Nuker just like you! Just understand that when you criticize him for his response to this loss that your criticism may have more to do with your feelings about him than anything he did in particular. Just like this scathing attack on Peyton by Drew Magary comes from Magary’s admitted predisposed dislike of Manning.
We all have biases. We all like what we like and don’t what we don’t. We just need to do a better job of identifying those biases when we make judgments of a player that wanted to win just as badly as we wanted him to lose.
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