Cam Skattebo wanted to prove his ankle was right. So the New York Giants running back launched into a backflip Saturday at Fanatics Fest in front of a crowd of onlookers, the kind of decision a special-teams coach would bench a kid for making in August.
He did not stick the landing.
Sunday, Skattebo and Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart sat down for a special episode of The Fantasy Footballers on SiriusXM, and the rookie addressed the wipeout with the calm of a man who’s been flipping since he was four years old — which, to be fair, he says he has.
“I will not hurt myself before the season,” Skattebo said, attempting to put the elephant in the room to rest. He then explained the physics of his pratfall: the floor at Fanatics Fest had too much give.
“I don’t know if you guys know WWE or not, those floors are bouncy,” Skattebo said. “So when I took off, I was mid-air, like, ‘Holy cow, I’m not gonna land this, I’m way too high.’ Landed, but it had too much cushion. It wasn’t a stiff, firm ground. So that’s why I kinda like went back, safely landed, got back up, was good to go.”
Now, I’ve seen plenty of kids try to show off at summer camps and end up on the trainer’s table. The difference is most of them aren’t doing it on a convention floor with cameras rolling, weeks before their first NFL training camp. Skattebo walked away clean — this time. The film doesn’t lie, but it also doesn’t care about next time.
Asked whether he leans into his reputation as a “wild maniac,” Skattebo didn’t flinch.
“I totally enjoy that part,” he said. “I think I less enjoy the ‘brain-dead kind of guy.’ But it is what it is. I mean, the New York people love it, so I’m just gonna keep being me. And if they wanna say I’m brain-dead and I don’t have no brain, then who cares? Fuck it, you know?”
That reputation didn’t materialize out of thin air. Back in March, Skattebo made headlines by claiming CTE and asthma aren’t real. He later walked it back, apologizing for what he called a “tasteless joke.” The apology landed; the original comments stuck. That’s how it works — you can’t un-ring a bell, and folks remember the clapper, not the retraction.
The Giants selected Skattebo in the fourth round of April’s draft out of Arizona State, where he ran for over 1,500 yards last season and became the engine of a Sun Devils team that reached the College Football Playoff. He runs with the kind of violence that makes old-line coaches nod approvingly — low pad level, finishes runs, doesn’t go down on first contact. The tape on that is legit.
The tape on the backflip is something else entirely. Skattebo says he’s fine, the ankle is fine, and the floor was the problem. Maybe so. But a rookie running back whose draft value is tied to his legs doing gymnastics on a convention floor is the kind of thing that gives general managers gray hair before minicamp even opens.
Skattebo doesn’t care. He said so himself. The New York people love it, and he’s going to keep being him. Whether the Giants’ training staff shares that enthusiasm remains to be seen.
