'these remarks left a bad taste in my mouth, because all of a sudden, it is open season on Cam Newton,” Bayless said. “And it’s because Bill Belichick cut him, so all bets are off, let it fly, come one, come all, line up to pile on with every little bit.
“I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not, but it seems a little overstated, a little exaggerated that Mac Jones was teaching Cam the playbook after Cam was there all of last year. I’m sorry, I don’t think Cam’s an idiot
.”Bayless also took things a step further Tuesday while questioning Ninkovich’s report, pointing out that it reeks of the old, baseless stereotype that Black quarterbacks struggle to grasp the mental aspect of football.
“What rankles me, what gives me pause, what, frankly, in the end horrifies me is, are we creeping back into Black quarterback syndrome — where, ‘oh, the Black quarterback doesn’t have the mental capability that the white quarterback has,’ even the young 23-year-old straight out of Alabama,” Bayless said. ” ‘He can’t process as quickly as Mac; Mac just absorbed it and then in meetings he’s having to teach it to Cam, who’s only been there for a whole year.’ It’s just hard for me to swallow that. I don’t like the echoes of that. Because I’ve lived through it, you’ve lived through it, we’ve come a long way in this regard. And all of a sudden, it feels like we’re taking a step backward.”