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There’s a lot of great stuff that comes along with being an elite professional athlete. Tens of millions of dollars in paychecks and endorsement deals, all of the romantic liaisons you could ever want, little kids worshipping the ground you walk on. All great things. But the worst part of being a professional athlete is the Coliseum-like atmosphere of the post-lose interview. It’s like sports journalists are just waiting to rip the loser into shreds, hoping to get the athlete to break. Because I’ve been watching so much tennis lately, I’ve gotten used to a certain level of class and grace from the post-match interview – even in defeat, a Roger Federer or Serena Williams or Andy Murray will sit for 30 minutes and answer the same questions (“Why did you lose?” and “Do you think you could have played better?”) over and over.

So, the Panthers lost to the Broncos at Super Bowl 50 last night. I won’t get into the logistics of it, mostly because I’m not a football person and mostly because I watched the first half and I was like, “Yeah, the Broncos are going to win.” So Panthers QB Cam Newton had to sit through an excruciating post-lose press conference in which every sports journalist in the world basically asked him variations of the same questions: Why did you lose, bro? Are you sad that you lost? How sad, man? After several minutes of muttering answers like “we got outplayed” and “we lost,” “They scored more points than us,” Cam Newton had enough. He walked out of his post-game presser.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, I’m sorry.” – A dejected Cam Newton walks off the podium abruptly. #SB50

https://t.co/xw4iLd1CQz

— NFL (@NFL) February 8, 2016

Now, was there a better way to handle this? Of course. He could have shown some grace and class and the headlines today wouldn’t be so bad. But in his defense… he JUST lost the Super Bowl. He barely had time to process that. Of course he felt like a loser. And what else did you want him to say?

As for Peyton Manning… everyone wondered why he took the time to mention Budweiser during his post-victory interview. Budweiser is not one of his many endorsements, although Variety points out that he has some ownership stakes in some Louisiana beer companies that “deal with Anheuser-Busch.” In any case, Anheuser-Busch wants you to know that they didn’t pay Manning to name-drop their beer. My guess? Manning wants to add Budweiser to his portfolio of endorsements so he was giving them a taste of what he could do for their brand.

Champion. #SB50 pic.twitter.com/rnCcAxKEZI

— NFL (@NFL) February 8, 2016

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Photos courtesy of Getty.