As the NFL prepares to celebrate the arrival of hundreds of new prospects during the upcoming draft, the league is sensitive to the possibility that those celebrations can be marred by the emergence of past tweets that reflect poorly on a given player and, in turn, on the league.
Per a league source, the NFL therefore has advised agents to “proactively scrub” negative tweets from prospect accounts, to ensure that none of these messages surface “during this critical time.”
It’s something the prospects and the agents should have done anyway, and there have been plenty of past examples regarding the consequences of a failure to do so. The league apparently has gotten involved because it plans to highlight old tweets in a positive way during the draft. Once that door swings open, the league doesn’t want any of the old tweets that reflect on the player in a negative way to emerge.
The league also has provided specific instructions to agents on the procedure for harvesting old tweets, reviewing them, and getting rid of any that may cause problems.
The message from league is simple: During this time in the player’s life, the press should be only positive. So, basically, go ahead and remove anything that may cause negative press for the players.
Again, the agents already should be doing this. The league doesn’t want the negative press attached to a drafted player splashing onto the league and the team that selected him, too.