It wasn't funny.
Cam Newton thought it was. The charismatic quarterback of the Carolina Panthers was responding to a perfectly acceptable sports question from a reporter for the Charlotte Observer.
The question was about a receiver and his pass routes.
The reporter was a woman.
It's funny to hear a female talk about routes," Newton said, "like..." _ he gave a long, exaggerated smile and chuckled to himself _ "...it's funny."
As he would later admit, the joke was on him. Newton was properly lambasted by the press and social media, admonished by his own league, and dropped as a spokesperson for Dannon yogurt.
Some of this was for his comment and some for his lack of an immediate apology. The reporter, 25-year-old Jourdan Rodrigue, sought Newton out after the press conference and asked privately why he thought her question was funny. According to Rodrigue, Newton did not say he was sorry. He did question whether she (or other reporters) had the ability to recognize pass routes. At the end of their brief exchange, Rodrigue asked whether Newton even knew her name. She had introduced herself a year earlier and had been covering the team every day since.
He admitted he didn't.
That's less funny than his first comment.
