Twitter Clickbait Not Worth Our Time: Paul Kuharsky

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By late Saturday afternoon, I’ll be on a beach, well removed from work.

For a week, I will be as disconnected from my phone as I am anytime during the year, but still not disinterested enough. Inevitably, out of habit, I will feel its tug and pick it up at times for no real reason, glancing at email and texts. 

But the real pull will come, sadly, from Twitter.

Obviously it’s a great way to promote one’s work and it’s not the worst thing as a news timeline. But there is so much junk on there, during a week with my family and good friends I shouldn’t sacrifice much time to it at all.

Over the last week I bookmarked several of the worst and worst kind of tweets I saw, determined to circle back and offer commentary on the garbage I spend time looking at.

Everyone knows there is no way Derek Jeter is the greatest Yankee of all time. Everyone knows he’s not close. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio all outrank him. You can start to argue after that.

This type of tweet is merely intended to stir things up and get a lot of comments. As of Friday afternoon, the video had nearly 40,000 views, so that’s good for @BaseballBros. But people were smart enough not to engage with such foolishness.

There were only 46 comments on it, many of them slamming the question.

Networks and gambling sites can’t sit still when they’ve got no real content to post, and so they’ve all concluded that lazy posts of random team logos or numbers asking, “Who’s the first player you think of when you see this?” is the way to fill the void.

On this one, there were far too many mentions of players inferior to Randy Moss.

Generally, I don’t understand the appeal of naming random players attached to random numbers or random logos. I scroll past these tweets, but I can’t believe how common they are. What’s the thrill of replying top them?

Russell Wilson will do plenty to get the fans at Empower Field at Mile High charged up during his first season in Denver. But are the stadium operations people actually going to put some of this on the scoreboard at the start of a series or at key moments in an attempt to get 76,125 fired up?

Every team has a day like this, with their players in uniform in front of green screens delivering messages and waving their arms for spots that will be used during games. I can’t believe the Broncos social media team actually posted this.

Wilson’s energy level here rates what, a 2.5? Call cut, give him a couple cups of coffee and give it another go.

This is an absolutely preposterous question.

Would you prefer the most prestigious sporting trophy in the world for your country that is given out once every four years? Or a trophy for your club in Europe that is handed out annually?

They are both prestigious, but a World Cup is way more prestigious. It’s the most prestigious.

You would really have to dislike your country for a club title that is handed out four times more often to mean more to you.

I’ve come across no one who looks upon Jason Garrett more favorably that Ian Rapoport.

Before the Chargers hired Brandon Staley in 2021, Rapoport thought the coach who got the Cowboys to the playoffs three times in 10 years and won all of two postseason games was a quality candidate for Los Angeles.

Now amid reports that Garrett, who’s done some USFL work, could replace Drew Brees on Notre Dame games and on Football Night in America, Rapoport is cheerleading his guy again.

I’m not particularly concerned with who’s doing the Fighting Irish games, thought I do think the analyst should be worthy. 

FNIA is a super plumb assignment that can do way better. It booted Rodney Harrison, who was quite good, to an on-site role to make room for Brees. Now Brees is out after one year because he wanted to be a game analyst. 

NBC should go back to Harrison or very carefully pick Brees’ studio replacement. It can do way better than Garrett. But that doesn’t mean Rapoport isn’t going to push for a guy who’s clearly been a wonderful source for him.

Paul Kuharsky co-hosts OutKick360. You can read more of him at PaulKuharsky.com.

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Written by Paul Kuharsky

Paul Kuharsky is an award-winning writer who has covered the NFL for over 22 years in California, Texas, and Tennessee, and also is a selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. After ESPN, PK came to join the longest running trio in Nashville Sports Talk in 2012.

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