Mike Freeman’s 10-Point Stance: Post-Tunsil Panic Throughout the NFL

1. Laremy Tunsil, the NFL and social media

A little while back, a player from an NFC team posted a harmless video of himself basically doing a one-on-one drill. The problem: One-on-one drills weren’t allowed by the NFL at that point in the offseason. 

The head coach of the player’s team was made aware, according to a league source. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t even agitated. The coach gave a simple warning to the team. His message: I get that you use social media to improve your brand. Just be smart. It was an intelligent message.

It was the kind of thing that teams do all the time. Low key. Non-panicked. Not a big deal.

That was before Laremy Tunsil.

Based on recent interviews with players, agents and team executives, in the aftermath of Tunsil’s draft-day social-media nightmare, there was a moment of sheer panic across the NFL.

Apparently someone hacked Laremy Tunsil’s twitter account, and tweeted out this…MINUTES before the #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/KisLGuj2l9

— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) April 29, 2016

Days after the Tunsil gas mask video became public, an agent said he got a call from a team front-office executive asking him to remind his client—who has a highly visible social-media presence—that everyone is watching.

Across the league, coaches told players to be careful. There were team meetings in a few cases, I’m told, but in many cases, a position coach simply told his players to watch out.

One AFC coach played the Tunsil video for members of his defense and said: “Don’t let this be you.” A strength and conditioning coach on another team told players to watch their passwords.

The NFL and individual teams, as well as agents and financial advisers, have been warning players about the dangers of the Internet since Al Gore invented it. But something about Tunsil scared teams. Not necessarily players. But teams.

What concerns them most? It was, as several explained to me, the viciousness of the crime against Tunsil. It was the belief that what happened to him wasn’t isolated, that it could happen to a lot of players.

There are more than a few players who trust people close to them with vital information, like passwords, and if those relationships end—particularly badly—they don’t change the passwords that were given out.

I’m also told that teams fear opponents obtaining passwords and engaging in various skullduggery, like stealing information and using it against that player or team. I’m told this has already happened at least once in the past few years. Who knows if that’s true, but I believe it.

Overall, I get a sense some teams believe there are potentially a number of players like Tunsil out there—players who are highly vulnerable. And this scares the hell out of their teams.

It should.

 

2. Teams, players impressed with Tunsil

I cannot tell you how much I have heard teams now admire Tunsil. That’s the word I’m hearing repeatedly: admiration.

Tunsil has admirers because of both his honesty and vulnerability. He told the truth about what happened and has recovered well—so well, in fact, that teams are now regretting passing him over. He hasn’t even played a down yet.

Yes, it was stupid what he did, teams said, but look at how he’s handled it.

Said Dolphins head coach Adam Gase recently:

When you go through kind of that whole process, I’m sure if any of us went through that on draft day, I’d be interested to see how everybody else reacted. I thought he handled it great. He did a good job last week in the press conference and I think he’s …

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