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On Wednesday night, former standout Wyoming quarterback, potential number one pick in the 2018 NFL draft, and future millionaire Josh Allen did the smart thing and revised his archive of tweets to reflect the idea that he is not actually a racist. “I was young and dumb,” he told Stephen A. Smith of his past. Many of his tweets back then—from his high school days—involved the n-word.
Once, though, in June of 2013 when asked, “Why are you so white?” Allen replied, “If it ain’t white, it ain’t right!” Which, as we all know, is the theory behind a lot of terrible a*s things. So he apologized for that, too. Folks are floating the theory that teams are leaking his past transgressions so that he falls lower in the draft. If that’s true, then the NFL draft process is far more interesting and juvenile than any of us imagined.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, a source from a team with a top-five draft pick has said he’s “never heard anything but positives” about Allen. The 6’5” slinger is being coveted as a team’s entire future so in that way, it makes sense to comb through the back alleys of his old tweets looking for dirt.
So you can expect this theater of contrite young men with glaring tweets to continue into the night. Some think no one is looking, and will not change a thing. Those athletes will come to regret that decision come draft time. Others, with management and endorsement deals to protect, have already scrubbed their social-media pasts clean of the soap scum of reckless youth.
The draft will start tonight in Arlington, Texas. Allen will likely either be headed to the Cleveland Browns with the top pick, or he will fall to other quarterback-hungry teams in the top 15. The New York Giants sit at the number two spot, the New York Jets are at three, the Denver Broncos are at five, and the Miami Dolphins are at 11.
You can watch the NFL draft on ESPN at 9 p.m. EST. It ends Saturday, April 28.
