Cam Skattebo recently joined a podcast (Bring the Juice with Frank Dalena) and joked about CTE and Asthma being “an excuse”. Insinuating that they are fake. Because this is the offseason, it made news. It made enough news that Skattebo made an apology statement.
First off: watch the clip. He claims he was joking, and I believe him. Why? Because I went and bothered to listen to the actual podcast. The context for the clip in question comes about 3:48 minutes in, and I think the lead-in is important here. The host asks him about his most hype touchdown. Cam describes a high school play where he says he broke “14 tackles”, and describes how he was barely on the ground and got back up and kept going. The host is impressed and follows up with a question asking if Skattebo ever actually trains for this kind of stuff, like running into hay bales or telephone poles, which is a story Skattebo’s mom has told the media. Skattebo brings up the telephone pole thing, comments that he’s not even sure that was real, but the story his mom told went viral, but he doesn’t remember it, and then goes “but I don’t remember much!” and then says the quote that I think is key here: “Could be the reason why I don’t remember!” He’s outright joking that he might have damaged his own brain. Rather odd for a guy who thinks it’s fake.
That’s when the host does a shit-eating grin and takes the moment to ask the “Do you think CTE is a real thing” and we get the viral clip. When you hear the lead up, and Cam self-depreciatingly joking about not remembering running into telephone poles because he ran into telephone poles, the famous clip comes significantly closer to feeling like a bit. His reaction to the CTE question does seem genuine, but after the host starts with the Asthma thing, the feeling that this is all a riff feels even stronger. Cam’s goofy face during the last part just strengthens the argument, imo. I don’t think it’s a very good bit, it’s a banter without much chemistry and falls flat, but I do think it’s a bit. To be honest the main thing I took away from the podcast was that it’s kind of a shit podcast.
Also, his mom defended him on twitter, saying he frequently had to “go run to get her inhaler”. If that’s true, I highly doubt Skattebo thinks Asthma is “an excuse”. All signs point to it being a bit, the bit being taken out of context, and people who didn’t bother researching the context then using it to confirm some priors about the man.
When I first started making this comic this post was going to be me asking why on earth do we give this much of a shit about the NFL player most likely to have a favorite flavor of crayon sharing a dumb take about head trauma, and in the process of researching it I came away with annoyance for the modern media hellscape. I had to read all kinds of moralizing about it from social media posters and sports sites, all discussing how bad it is and how Cam went from loveable oaf to horrible influence, yadda yadda. He then had to go apologize for it, when the actual problem here was that a clip of him out of context got spread around the internet and caused discourse. He inadvertently caused a distraction. That’s definitely on him for not fully appreciating how this machine works and hopefully this little incident teaches him something. You are in the NY media market now, Skatt man. You have to be more careful.
I want to reiterate that I do not think Cam Skattebo is a particularly smart person. I think he’s genuinely an idiot. I also think it’s kind of ridiculous to moralize how terrible he is for not understanding CTE, if he in fact does think it’s fake or whatever. Anybody aware of Skattebo before this is fully aware of his reputation as a neanderthal. Why are we suddenly holding this guy to such high standards? I got wind of this clip before most of sports media did, because I root for the Giants, peruse Giants circles, and therefore tend to see minor Giants news break before it reaches wider audiences. It was on reddit/social in Giants spaces a couple of days before it hit wider news sites, and Giants fans seemed to genuinely react the same way: why on earth did anyone expect more from Skattebo? Of course he’s an idiot about CTE, this isn’t surprising. This is a guy we have been making jokes will have a very fun 2-year career since his first snap last season. This is a guy we have footage of slamming his head into a brick wall pre-game to pump himself up. We all knew this guy is the missing link and that he’s not a role model for taking care of himself.
I don’t know if Skatt genuinely believes in CTE or not. I think he probably does believe in it, but doesn’t really dwell on it or care much. I don’t really blame him for it. I blame the NFL for spending years covering it up and downplaying it, leading to millions of people not taking it seriously. I blame the current wave of anti-science/anti-intellectualism that has swept the nation and the world, which has led to so many people just disregarding research and facts because they don’t personally vibe with them. Skattebo is just as much a victim of the bad influence as he is one. He’s a symptom of a wider disease. I think it’s a touch unreasonable to be super upset at the class dirt eater to not be a wise enlightented scientific master. I kinda feel bad calling him an idiot this much as I am, because this has taught me he isn’t quite as dumb as people are making him out to be.
I hope he’s a bit wiser in the future with his words, and does a better job understanding how the media will take anything he does in the worst way if it gets clicks. I would bet this is far from his last incident. I’m sad to see that this out-of-context bad joke is going to be used against him by people who never bothered to look into it and see if there was any more to the story, but just believed the quick headlines.
For me, this served as a good personal reminder that it’s important to even casually research what you can before spouting off a take. It did not take me long to check the podcast, see the post his mom made, or read into it, and I’m glad I did, so I could get a better picture of the situation and hopefully share those findings with you so that when this comes up in conversation in the future, you know more than the other guy.
Cam Skattebo might be an idiot, but we aren’t much better if we can’t even give the courtesy to check to see if it’s true first.
