When I saw a bunch of people Tweeting about New York Giants punter Steve Weatherford this morning, my first thought was, “Sloooooooooooow news day.” Or maybe he was abducted by intergalactic talking raccoons, in which case, awesome! And now that I know why people are buzzing about him, I think he’d probably prefer that some spaceships came and scooped him up.
It turns out that Weatherford Tweeted a video of his teammate Jason Pierre-Paul taking part in a little rookie hazing of Prince Amukamara, as he threw him in a tub of ice water after Saturday’s preseason game. And then the angels opened up the fiery gates of Hell and all overreaction broke loose. Yes, my friends, it’s true – NFL players haze rookies. Go ahead and turn off the planet, nothing is sacred anymore.
What do you have to say for yourself, punter?
“I want to apologize to the fans,” Weatherford said on Twitter. “The video I posted was distasteful. Our team is a family, and we love each other. I am sorry to the fans.” (Via The Victory Formation)
I can understand if people are upset about this kind of roughhousing because Amukamara could have been hurt. Otherwise, what’s the big deal? Dudes f*ck with each other. Hell, I’ll give JPP credit for doing something this tame, when we still see teammates in every sport resorting to homophobic tactics like dressing their teammates up as fairies or shaving dicks in their hair. But then, I’m an optimist and I’ll always be the first to say: “Bro, it could be worse.”
Alas, we’re in full damage control mode now.
“I’m going to look into it, I’m going to talk to the parties involved,” Coughlin said on Monday. “As I’m understanding it, there were some parts of it that were inappropriate. And in no way, anything that occurs within this family or within our group should be a part of social media. I’m going to address that strongly because I spent a little time on that this preseason.” (Via Yahoo!)
It’s safe to say that Weatherford’s Twitter account is probably going to disappear for a while, not because his teammates care that people are shocked at the video, but because he posted it in the first place. But there will be critics and they will be outraged. I’d say the response on Twitter has been about 50-50, but I’m in the “Dude, it’s not that bad” crowd. I guarantee there’s much worse going on.
