Social Media And The NFL Draft

Every year athletes being drafted, politicians running for office, or famous celebrities old posts on social media are exposed at the worst times for their career. Most of the time these posts are from at least five or six years before, but this doesn't exactly excuse the questionable posts. Just because Twitter was a completely savage form of social media in 2012 doesn't mean it was ok for someone to tweet something blatantly offensive. Although I say this, do we sometimes over-analyze what the post someone made as a twelve or thirteen year-old? Do they deserve to have a depletion of their career because of this behavior? Where is the line between forgivable and inexcusable? Throughout this blog I'm going to look at some cases separately and try to see if we can figure out what separates the extremities from the normalities and some other outside factors involved.

Patrick Mahomes

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So we all remember the shooting of Trayvon Martin and how questionable it was from Geirge Zimmerman's standpoint. Many of us had opinions on what had happened and many people discussed it online. One of those people being Patrick Mahomes in 2011. On December 27th of 2011, Patrick tweeted "stop resisting or assaulting a cop #realcops." This tweet was dug up and publicized right before the Super bowl, the biggest game of his life. I know at twelve years old I couldn't understand why something like this would or had happened not living around any reality of police violence, living outside of the inner city. Patrick grew up in Tyler, Texas a safe and simple town East of Dallas, which was actually the first certified retirement community in Texas. So I would assume he had no real experience with police violence, and never really wrapped his head around the realization of corrupt cops. This doesn't excuse Mahomes defending Zimmerman at this time. Should we bring this tweet, along with all the hate that comes with it at him right before the Super bowl besides his ignorance at the time?  I don't believe it was fair to bring up a tweet he said as a child nine-years prior. Patrick was wrong at the time but not deserving of the sudden punishment for something from years and years ago.

Josh Allen

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Josh Allen had multiple offensive tweets and retweets come up well before draft night. Some of these were straight up questionable regardless of age, these change the outlook from young and ignorant to what type of person or teammate is he? So when these teams are evaluating what kind of person this guy is going to be in the locker room these are obviously red flags. We all do a lot of growing up through high school and college but when there is millions of dollars on the line you can't make a risky decision that could make or break a franchise. Most of his tweets were obviously meant to be jokes and not to hurt anyone's feelings like the "if it ain't white it ain't right" tweet in response to someone asking why he's so white. The reference to a television show may have been appropriate in a small group setting where everyone knows what he's talking about (probably not still) but it doesn't exactly mean he is a racist to this day.
One tweet that is a big problem though is "punches beanie boy fa**** in throat", this could be a locker room problem if he tends to throw homophobic terms in the locker room. Something like that most likely wouldn't get out of the locker room but if it did it would give whatever team or franchise that chose to draft him look terrible. This tweet isn't a politically incorrect joke, it comes off violent and homophobic. The rest were pretty much retweets he made that the original account had the n word in, although the context of the n word wasn't the "harsh version" or implied any racism. After all of this came out Allen still took responsibility and apologized for his immaturities at the time. Although he did this these raise questions for the risk a team could be taking putting him in the locker room.

Nick Bosa

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In 2016 at the rise of Collin Kaepernick and other NFL athletes kneeling during the National Anthem to raise awareness of police brutality and other injustices the black community goes through, Nick Bosa tweeted "Kaepernick is a clown." Many Americans felt that these athletes were disrespecting America and the soldiers who are fighting over our freedom at this time. Lots of people were even boycotting the NFL and not watching their favorite teams because the NFL chose to let these players advocate these issues the way they did. Although this was a 'controversial' way to bring light to what was happening (and is still happening) in America, many players and people found it disrespectful that Nick Bosa was so verbal about how he felt about the situation. Understandingly players and American citizens felt as if Nick Bosa was being insensitive about what the players were advocating against, giving people a racist vibe. Maybe Nick Bosa felt strongly about respecting our nation and the troops but that doesn't give him viable reasoning as to not being aware of what many people in the black community experience. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion either way but once you have a platform or potential in a league with so much diversity, you can't treat Twitter as your diary. Bosa for obvious reasons is disliked around the league. 

In all honesty each of these players have grown to become successful and hopefully have been examples for younger guys to be careful what they're tweeting. In my opinion the reason we have had so many issues the last few years with instances like this is because originally Twitter was a 'savage platform.' Meaning many people put whatever the hell they wanted onto Twitter between 2010 and 2014. Lots of these players were thirteen to seventeen years old during this time. So essentially many players had controversial draft value because they treated Twitter as if it was a Snapchat group chat with their closest friends. Although I think people will become smarter, social media will continue to integrate it's way into sports and how we view players. This movement isn't all negative though, social media gives players a platform to speak for themselves and have a voice. As Lebron James would say, it gives them a chance to be "More Than An Athlete." Hopefully they will use the chance to better the world and their image unlike some that have made a poor portrayal of themselves.