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The first round of the 2016 NFL draft was one of the wildest and strangest in recent memory.
The Los Angeles Rams had the first overall pick to kick off their return to the City of Angels after leaving for St. Louis in 1994. The Dallas Cowboys broke the unwritten rule of not taking a running back in the first round after they drafted Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliot with the fourth overall pick, despite having Darren McFadden and Alfred Morris on the roster.
My own New York Giants took fellow Ohio State teammate, cornerback Eli Apple, with the 10th pick, despite just signing former Rams cornerback Janoris Jenkins to a five year, $62.5 million contract.
Confused yet? Join the club.
The craziest incidents, however, revolved around one offensive tackle out of Ole Miss by the name of Laremy Tunsil. Tunsil was considered by many to be a top tier talent, and his slide to being selected by the Miami Dolphins with the 13th overall pick was a shock to say the least.
Despite all the finger pointing and the ‘poor kid’ sympathies, however, there’s only one person to blame for Laremy Tunsil’s actions: himself.
13 minutes before the draft was due to begin, a video appeared on Tunsil’s twitter account, showing him in a gas mask smoking a bong in front of a confederate flag. The image was swiftly removed, and his Twitter account deleted.
Then, while he was giving an interview post-draft, images appeared on his Instagram account that implicated Ole Miss’ staff in paying both Tunsil’s rent and his mother’s water and electric bills. His Instagram account was also deleted.
In the main interviews after the draft, he replied “yeah” in response to whether he had ever taken money from his coach. He was promptly ushered off the podium and briefed behind a closed door.
Admittedly, some events may be out of his control, like his stepfather filing a defamation of character suit against Tunsil days before the draft, or another lawsuit brought by his stepfather after the two got into a physical fight last year and Tunsil was arrested (Tunsil also pressed charges on his stepfather in relation to this incident; both the lawsuits were dropped).
One could even argue that what happened on draft night was not his doing, and they’d be correct in a sense. The timing of the posts prove that he couldn’t have put them up himself, and nobody would be stupid enough to post such self-incriminating evidence on the night of the draft, if at all. Nonetheless, the hacking (which I am not excusing in any way) does not take away from the fact that Tunsil actually did smoke marijuana and take money from his coach.
Media pundits, NFL ‘analysts’ and the Twittersphere can kick up a fuss all they want about how it was ‘so wrong’ that this information was posted, about how it’s ‘such a shame’ that this happened, but all I can think of when I hear that is excuses, entitlement and exception.
All I can think of is Cris Carter at the 2014 NFL rookie symposium, where he told the newest players entering the league to get a ‘fall guy’ that will take the blame for them and even possibly go to prison for them when they make a mistake.
All I can think of is Poppy Harlow, a CNN correspondent, lamenting how awful it was as Steubenville High School students Trent Mays’ and Ma’lik Richmond’s “lives fell apart” after they were convicted for raping a 16-year-old girl.
Somehow, when sports are involved, the hacker is the one at fault, not the person who actually committed the crimes. It’s the person who released the surveillance video who should be criticised, not the running back who knocked out his fiancee and dragged her lifeless body out of the elevator.
Nobody forced Laremy Tunsil to smoke that bong. Nobody forced Laremy Tunsil to take money and various other illegal benefits from Ole Miss coaches, athletic staff and boosters. Instead of getting caught up in how bad the hacker’s actions were, how about people remember what the actual posts were showing us?
Tunsil has to be held accountable for his own actions, and will get no pity from me for doing the wrong thing.
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