The issue of deleted tweets continues to grow. But the latest one was both much more factually incorrect and around for much less time than Elon Musk’s “Go Eagles.” Late Tuesday morning, ESPN NFL reporter Dianna Russini tweeted that the New York Jets had hired former Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier (who the team parted ways with at the end of January, along with offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and several other members of head coach Mike McCarthy’s staff), and she got a retweet from ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter. But Russini quickly deleted that tweet and posted a new one, revealing that Nussmeier was instead joining Moore with the Los Angeles Chargers:
The Chargers have hired Doug Nussmeier as QB coach, per source.
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) February 14, 2023
Twitter errors definitely happen, including from Schefter, and including from us. And with something like this, there’s a possibility that Russini‘s source erred and then corrected, rather than the error being all on her. She did tweet after this that Nussmeier (seen above during the Cowboys’ training camp last August) had “multiple options”:
Doug Nussmeier follows Kellen Moore to LA.
I was told Nussmeier had multiple options.
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) February 14, 2023
There is also even the possibility that a Nussmeier-Jets deal was actually done and then undone. That’s certainly happened with some player and coaching moves in the past. (That’s maybe a little unlikely given the extremely quick turnaround here, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.)
In the end, this isn’t the world’s biggest deal. The wrong information was only out there for a few minutes. But that wrong information can go a long way, especially with a retweet from someone like Schefter (who has 10.2 million followers to Russini’s 275,000). And it might be worthwhile for Russini to acknowledge her erroneous tweet at some point.
[Dianna Russini on Twitter; photo from Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports]
