15 days and counting until the start of the 2009 NFL Draft. And do you know what team franchise personnel are up to? Checking Facebook and MySpace, of course! You could say that the “unofficial” draft has started as some teams are already in the process of weeding out players they feel will not benefit their organization – off the field.
An invasion of privacy? Not really. We all know that once something is posted to the Internet, it’s really not private anymore. A little underhanded? In this case, I’d say yes. NFL personnel are creating bogus profiles in order to gain access to potential prospects’ personal profiles. A good idea? (I think you know the answer to that one!)
What strikes me as funny is now that the NFL’s method of vetting draftees is out, potential picks are going to scrub their profiles clean and be very wary of who they befriend. I give this method another two, three years tops before the NFL needs to find another “innovative” way to screen their prospects.
Social Networking a Potential Trap for Prospects
By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports – April 7, 2009
The woman in the Facebook picture is attractive, with auburn hair and icy blue eyes. She is flanked by several other women, each armed with an inviting smile and curvy features. Along with the photo is a hopeful note from the female “fan” asking to be added to a player’s personal networking profile.
The twist? These women don’t actually exist, at least not in the way that some unsuspecting NFL prospects are led to believe. Indeed, they are a figment of one NFL team’s imagination – a phony Facebook profile, used as a tool by one franchise in the pre-draft vetting process. A Trojan horse that, when used effectively, unlocks a door to a world of Internet pictures and information which most NFL teams are now consistently compiling to help polish their dossiers on draft picks.
“It works like magic,” said a personnel source that was familiar with his team’s tactic of using counterfeit profiles to link to Facebook and Myspace pages of potential draft picks. The source directed Yahoo! Sports to one of the team’s “ghost profiles” – a term he coined because “once the draft is over, they disappear. It’s like they were never there.”
I had made a thread about him and like Ward, he is usually counted out because of his lack is physical abilities. In terms of doing what a receiver should, I think he is # 1.