Coming off of an amazing Thursday night performance in week six, New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs was a late scratch from the Giants Monday night game against the Minnesota Vikings. Obviously, fantasy owners who jumped on the Jacobs bandwagon was bummed out to see the powerful rusher miss a game but most should have been prepared for his absence considering his questionable status for the last game of the week.
One fan however, didn’t have the foresight or ability to make other plans and was banking pretty hard on Jacobs playing. So hard, in fact, that they took to Twitter to make death threats at Jacob and his family if he didn’t suit up.
On Tuesday morning, Jacobs revealed the threats on his own twitter account, adding “Look at what we deal with…”
In the tweets, from account @DMMeBoo, Jacobs was told that if he didn’t rush for 50 yards and two touchdowns, “it’s over for you and yo family ni**a.” The tweeter then followed up with a tweet saying that he was serious, saying that “IM NOT PLAYING”.
@DMMeBoo initially laughed off Jacobs reposting of his threats but after receiving negative tweets himself because of it, he then tweeted Jacobs again apologizing and asking for forgiveness. Soon after, @DMMeBoo deleted his account.
Giants personnel said on Tuesday that the tweets have been reported to NFL Security.
Giants head coach Tom Coughlin said on Tuesday afternoon that the team was “concerned” for the safety of Jacobs and his family.
“It has no business or no place in professional athletics, amateur athletics or whatever,” Coughlin said. “You can extend the entertainment business and then you can begin to formulate questions about where this kind of stuff comes from. You’re always concerned about the player and his family.
“And for young people to have to worry about something like that, it’s not necessary. It’s not a part of what we do. I’m not going to speculate on social media. I’m just concerned about however this would be revealed, that it’s wrong and it has no business in our game.”
Basically, this whole story is just an “in your face” example of how close the paths of stars and fans actually cross today thanks to the advancements of social media. More than likely, @DMMeBoo never thought Jacobs would even read his tweet and was just mouthing off. Of course, that doesn’t excuse the idiocy of the guy for saying what he said, it just hammers home the fact that you have got to be careful about everything you put out there for people to see because there are no take-backs in the digital world, none at all.
Fantasy football is just a game. Take it serious if you must (I do) but never cross this line.
James LeBeau is an avid fantasy sports participant and a sports contributor for CraveOnline Sports. You can follow him on twitter @Jlebeau76 or “like” CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.
Photo Credit: Getty
