EPIC FAIL

Actually Robert I would not be all that psyched to trade with you right now

Robert Henson really stepped in it, insulting anyone that actually works for a living while bragging how far above reproach his 310 thousand dollar NFL rookie salary puts him, the rest of us are just untouchables living down here in the shithole, handing up our money to him once a week and thanking him for being inactive again.

After the Redskins disappointing win against the Rams Sunday, Robert took to his Twitter account, since abandoned, and attacked Redskins fans, calling us dim witted and inviting us not to come back to Redskins Stadium which as it happens a bunch of people already had. In a later tweet he seemed certain any of us would switch places with him, presumably because playing professional football makes him more worthy in society than I.

The tweets bounced around the four corners of Redskinsland and immediately found their way into the media, they were shown in the postgame show Sunday night on TV on Comcast SportsNet, Washington Post. Then the next morning it was just in the Post's DC Sports Bog (op. cit.), that was where I picked it up and I will bet by now Robert is sweating because he made a formal apology later that day.

When he heard the Post was not done with the story he went onto Redskins TV Monday night to try and clear the air, Larry Michael like Robert is a team employee so Larry did not exactly interrogate or try and get into Robert's base motivation, just let him whine about being disappointed the story was going to continue after his apology.

Well running over someone in your car does not go away when you get out and apologize to the guy in your grille, and in one fell swoop Robert, a nobody in the annals of the Redskins, ran over the fans with a fuck you and your expectations of winning cause I got my money dump truck but I'm sorry now can we move on is not going to cut it.

So the next day, Tuesday, the story was on the front page, THE FRONT PAGE of the Washington Post with the headline

A Redskin Feels the Heat from a Tweet
Fans Boo, a Rookie Vents and a Media Storm Ensues

The Washington Post has about 650 thousand daily subscribers and most recent estimates for washingtonpost.com is in the neighborhood of 750 thousand visits per day. That is a lot of eyeballs reading about a rookie that made no contribution to the win yet felt the need to insult the working people of his team's city. Why did the Washington Post do that to Robert?

Because it was a news story. Insulting the fans is all but forbidden in pro football, they pay money to sit in the seats and buy jerseys and hats and fleece blankets and disposable players that cause headaches for the owner in the form of unhappy customers can find themselves on the waiver wire quickly.

It was also a news story because less than a month ago the NFL, uncertain what to do about the explosion of social media in the form of Facebook and Twitter among NFL players, banned players and team officials from twittering during games. Even though Robert's lapse in judgment was after the game, the principal remains, players may not know the limits of what can be posted and may post up something they or the team will regret.

Which is what happened here.

Wednesday Mike Greenberg on ESPN radio ranted hard about Robert, calling him a disgrace and pointing out that anyone working at McDonald's was long priced out of buying tickets to see a Redskins game and that that McDonald's worker had as much to do with the Redskins winning as Robert did, given that Robert was inactive for the game.


Insult me. The paying fan. Well played genius, so I guess this was not the town you wanted to retire in because you just lost your key. You can stay here a while and mull on this, you are done here and probably will not make the cut next August.



Robert Henson caricatured in an ESPN cartoon from here, hat tip to Oliver Willis for the find.