As I am writing this there is almost definitely a team of public relations professionals (ironically probably made up of mixed company) carefully crafting an extremely "genuine" apology on behalf of Cam Newton, so the shelf life on this blog should be pretty damn short. Still, I wanted to get this up before the quarterback who finds the presence of the fairer sex in a sports-related workplace to be the purest form of comedy officially had his amends made for him. The absence of an empty atonement is obviously not the most important aspect of this story, but that absence is - in fact - proof positive that uncontrollably giggling at a female reporter's mere mention of a word as universally understood as "routes" wasn't just spur of the moment misogyny. Call me crazy, but I am glad Cam Newton "expressed regret, but didn't apologize" with what sounds like a fairly literal "sorry, not sorry". I'm glad that he had his chance to distance himself from what was the most casually executed of sexism...and massively failed in doing so. I'm glad that he essentially doubled down on what was very clearly an instinctually offensive reaction to the idea of a woman understanding one of football's most basic concepts. Please note, I don't think it's a good thing that a public figure in 2017 doesn't have a solid grasp on the renovations that society is continually trying to make to "the glass ceiling" in hopes of turning it into more of a sky deck. I do, however, think it's good that he almost immediately made it impossible to brush off his completely unprovoked, dangerously old fashioned commentary on gender roles. Most of us can't - in good conscience - claim we are above firing off an idiotic comment from time to time, but failing to own up to it on your own accord when the person targeted by said comment confronts you? I'd almost rather the Carolina Panthers not release some meaningless apology at this point, because the fact that the person that owes us one limited his initial response to "regret" makes it unforgivable anyway. His laugh was quite obviously inpiss poor humor, but his defense of it is somehow even less funny.
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