The life of an NFL insider can be a bit of a lonely one. When you are correct about a scoop or piece of information, everyone expects it of you. But when you are wrong, you receive massive amounts of criticism. When it comes to now-retired star defensive tackle Aaron Donald, ESPN’s Adam Schefter was most definitely correct.
A 2014 tweet from Schefter was discovered by Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, which happened to be about Donald, detailing that he had heard Donald “is unreal” in practice before he had ever played a snap in an NFL game.
Just got this text from Rams' practice: "Aaron Donald is unreal."
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 26, 2014
Donald of course lived up to this hype and even more in the NFL, reaching the Pro Bowl in each of his ten NFL seasons, being named to eight first-team All-Pro teams, and even playing a huge role in the Rams Super Bowl run in 2022 before officially announcing his retirement on Friday.
The entire world now knows that Donald was indeed “unreal” as a player, surely destined for an induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame sometime in the near future. But at the time of the tweet from Schefter, some fans weren’t entirely sold on this information being accurate.
Sanders took to social media to share screenshots of old takes from fans who were critical of Schefter’s tweet at the time, praising Schefter for the accuracy of his sources on Donald’s skill level.
“Our critics have critics so why do we listen to critics,” tweeted Sanders. @AdamSchefter has always kept it 100 & his info comes from everyone that’s as close as your shadow! Wow these idiots really missed on this 1 huh.”
Our critics have critics so why do we listen to critics! @AdamSchefter has always kept it 💯 & his info comes from everyone that's as close as your shadow! Wow these idiots really missed on this 1 huh. #CoachPrime pic.twitter.com/1DebrnlT6m
— COACH PRIME (@DeionSanders) March 16, 2024
Funny enough, a number of the tweets screenshotted by Sanders were actually just trolls that had commented negative things about Donald recently. But Sanders’ sentiment is pretty accurate, as there were plenty of others who actually did disagree with Schefter at the time.
Somebody is good in practice. Cool story bro “@AdamSchefter: Just got this text from Rams' practice: "Aaron Donald is unreal."”
— Paul Rogers (@rogerstxlaw) July 26, 2014
@AdamSchefter we talkin bout practice? What are we talkin bout here man, not the game that I love we're talkin bout practice-Allen Iverson.
— It's NYC over everybody else! (@Fuhgedabouhdit) July 26, 2014
Often times, we only hear about when media members are incorrect about a player. So it is pretty cool to see Sanders giving Schefter his flowers in this instance.
