Remember these following words; Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.
Now take those works you painstakingly memorized and text them to your nearest NFL running back because apparently these guys didn’t get the memo.
Two of the NFL’s brightest backs, the Tennessee Titans Chris Johnson and the Houston Texans Arian Foster, was guilty this week of being just a tad bit too sensitive. You see, they forgot the cardinal rule of being involved on some sort of social media, it goes both ways, so when each was faced with some negative backlash this week, both responded a little hatefully to those detractors.
First up was Arian Foster, who pulled a hammy in this past weekends game and was reportedly bombarded with woe and dismay from fantasy football owners who have him on their teams. This rush of negativity prompted Foster to lash back, landing a verbal blow on those who partake of America’s favorite game within a game.
“4 those sincerely concerned, I’m doing ok & plan 2 B back by opening day. 4 those worried abt your fantasy team, uppl are sick.” Foster tweeted.
As expected and probably following a quick call from team officials and his agent, Foster relaxed his stance a bit and tried to clean up his comment.
“What I was saying was that people that value the digital game over a human being’s health is just kind of weird to me. That’s all I meant to say.” Foster said after Mondays practice.
The second social media/NFL back mini brawl came Wednesday, when Chris Johnson took to tweeting to defend himself against people who don’t understand why he just won’t take $9 million a year.
Johnson tweeted Wednesday to “fake Titan fans” to shut up. He then went on to write, “I don’t have a regular job so don’t compare me to you and I can care less if uthink I’m greedy.”
His comments sparked such a mini firestorm that Johnson returned to the twitterverse later to try to clarify his comments. Again, like Foster, probably at the behest of his agent.
“My titan fans taking it all wrong I’m talking to the ones writing me racist Comments. I’m not call the Titan fans fake at all. #LUV,” Johnson tweeted.
What can we take from all this negativity from running backs?
Well, other than the obvious don’t be on twitter if you can’t take negativity, is that people are people and that even the guys making 7 figures plus can be human from time to time…
And a tad sensitive.
Photo Credits: ASSOCIATED PRESS
