Adam Schefter is the best in the business when it comes to sports reporting. He breaks more stories than anybody and is the most popular insider in all of sports. But even the best have their moments that they’d rather forget.
During last year’s free agency, Schefter and ESPN were caught on air hyping up a fake tweet. This happens all the time on Twitter with fake accounts trying to fool people with reports of breaking news. Sometimes they’ll use the photo and biography of a prominent reporter and do the old “capital I looks like a lowercase l” trick or put in an underscore where there shouldn’t be one. Those tweets get retweeted a few times, picked up by legitimate media folk, and then they spread like wildfire.
The best of these accounts is @UncleChaps, who fooled Schefty and ESPN with a fake report about Olivier Vernon.
#Dolphins DE Oliver Vernon headed north to Jacksonville for 4yrs 75.5 mil.
— Chaps (@UncleChaps) March 9, 2016
Schefter appeared on Barstool’s popular Pardon My Take podcast and gave the backstory of how Chaps’ tweet got cited on ESPN, with the transcript coming via Sports Illustrated:
“You’re in your own world and you’re trying to track all the free agent news that’s going on,” he added. “So I’m sitting at the desk in the middle of NFL Live and they say to me, ‘We’re going to come to you on Olivier Vernon.’ I said, ‘OK. Fine. You can come to me on Olivier Vernon. You can come to me on Alshon Jeffery. Whatever I can share with you, I certainly will.’ They come to me and it says on the screen ‘Olivier Vernon signs with the Jaguars.’ Now, you’re looking at that and you’re first reaction is, ‘Goddamn. I got beat on a story.’ And you got beat on a story while you’re being put on TV to see your reaction for the first time. There’s nothing worse than that.”
“So they come through, ‘Adam, what do you know about this?’ The truth of the matter is I don’t know a lot about it because I’ve been trying to track whether he’s going to the Giants or the Jaguars or someone else. Now you’re telling me that it’s out there that he’s signed withe the Jaguars. And I go, ‘Well, he was talking to Jacksonville and apparently he’s made his decision.’ Somehow, in a time when everyone’s being hasty…Chaps dunked on us.”
Here’s the clip of what happened that day.
It’s really crazy when you think about it that ESPN would put Schefter on the air blind with “here’s what we found on Twitter” without trying to first verify it, but that’s what happens in today’s media world when the push to break news and get it out as fast as possible is so intense.
Here’s what happened when Schefter came back on the air that day to correct the record and set it straight.
.@unclechaps is on the board pic.twitter.com/WvP6XGhZhf
— Kenny Ducey (@KennyDucey) March 9, 2016
These things do happen from time to time and “Chaps dunked on us” may just be one of the best sports quotes of the year.
[Sports Illustrated/Pardon My Take]
