NFL Teams Are Monitoring Players On Facebook and Twitter

There’s something about the internet that makes people do and say stupid things.  There are more tough guys on the internet than exist in the world.  People are quicker to be forceful with their opinion on the internet as compared to in real life.

This is one of the reasons, the Eagles and other teams monitor what players say and post on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

“We have someone looking over Facebook pages, Twitter accounts – in front of us will come every single person on our draft board, their Twitter accounts and their Facebook accounts,” Eagles GM Howie Roseman said yesterday at the Nova Care Complex. “It’s important how they represent themselves in those settings. I think you see the process they go through, some of these players, they’ll tweet certain things, and then once the draft process starts all of a sudden they’ll shut it down or they’ll say something really positive. Those are discussions we want to have. Those are some of the players we want to spend extra time with and understand, get into their mind-set. What’s going to happen when they get drafted and get some money? That is part of the process now.”

Some players don’t realize that everything they do in front of the team whether it be in person or on a Facebook or Twitter page, is really a job interview.  If you wouldn’t sit there in front of the GM and head coach and say something stupid then don’t put it on your Facebook page or tweet it on your Twittter account.

“It’s a reflection on our organization, our ownership. We want to be sure we’re bringing the right people into the building”, Roseman said. “Most of these guys who do questionable things on Facebook or Twitter, they probably have done other questionable things.”

Both of these social media vehicles are dangerous because there’s very little that stops the player from making their opinion public during a moment of emotion.  Without social media they would likely let the anger pass without doing anything, but the availability of social media lets them tell the world how they feel immediately.  Once you post something on the internet, you can’t every take it back.

You have some players costing themselves millions of dollars because they couldn’t resist putting up or saying something stupid on a Facebook or Twitter page.  Now that is what I call stupid.