Everyone’s favorite NFL aggregator Dov Kleiman is seemingly at it again.
Kleiman was the subject of ire from those in the NFL world, as he resurfaced a report from July, which indicated that USC quarterback Caleb Williams wanted partial ownership from the NFL team that will select him in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Report: USC Caleb Williams wants partial ownership from the #NFL team that will select him in the 2024 Draft, per @ProFootballTalk
PFT reported in July that Caleb's representatives had been making it known that Williams wants partial ownership of the team that selects him in… pic.twitter.com/5lLVEMEbOi
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) October 18, 2023
That report was from Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Here’s what some of that entailed:
The NFL curiously has slammed the door on teams giving equity to players or employees, before anyone ever actually tried to do it. Since posting an item on the issue earlier tonight, we’ve caught wind of two players who were hoping to score a slice of ownership.
Per multiple sources, the representatives of USC quarterback Caleb Williams had been making it known to prospective agents that Williams wants partial ownership of the team that selects him in 2024, if he declares for the draft.
Likewise, a league source tells PFT that Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers attempted to secure equity in his contract discussions with the Jets.
The Jets never had to say “no,” because the league did it for the Jets — and every other team — last week.
Let’s get a couple of things straight here. We already know that active NFL players cannot have an ownership stake in an NFL team. Aaron Rodgers already tried—and failed. Florio was citing multiple sources, but nowhere has Caleb Williams ever explicitly said that he wants partial ownership of a team. In fact, we have no idea if the reigning Heisman Trophy winner will even declare for next year’s NFL Draft.
Now that we’ve established that, nobody takes a story from July and aggregates it as though it were something new in October unless you’re just farming for engagement.
Williams is coming off his worst-ever performance in a Trojans uniform, having completed 23-of-37 passes (62 percent) for 199 yards with a touchdown against three interceptions in a 48-20 loss to Notre Dame. In trying to take advantage of that fact, Kleiman attempted to pass off a story from July as new information, seeking engagement. And it worked, as his tweet has almost nine million views. The shameless Kleiman currently has the tweet pinned on his profile.
He even wrote a story on it.
This is just absolutely nasty work. It’s not new territory for Kleiman, who first rose to prominence when he aggregated Trey Wingo’s offseason report on Aaron Rodgers and the Jets. Back then he tried to pass off an “I’m only the messenger” approach but that’s hard to do when you’re intentionally twisting old, debunked stories as something new.
And many on social media agreed.
https://twitter.com/Aaron_Torres/status/1714728232120185288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1714728232120185288%7Ctwgr%5Ec43592f155ee2412c29c2e2effe7c4a1cfc30744%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FAaron_Torres2Fstatus2F1714728232120185288widget%3DTweet
He’s such a fucking snake for this, man.
Caleb Williams has his first bad game of the year so Dov goes and “aggregates” a story from July like it’s new to try to make him look worse and feast on the engagement that comes with people shitting on him.
Fuck him for that. For real. pic.twitter.com/aGhnm6WBnU
— De’Vion Hinton (@LordDexHinton) October 18, 2023
This about sums it up perfectly.
1. Active NFL Players cannot have an ownership stake in an NFL team
2. Caleb Williams never said he wanted ownership
3. The article in question is from July
4. Block Dov, nflrumors, and all the other aggregator accounts; they provide nothing of substance.
— Hunter Haas (@NFLDraftHaas) October 18, 2023
And yet we still have no idea who this guy is.
WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Gianotti attempted to unravel the mystery. And Esiason later heard that Kleiman is a plant for Tom Brady from a trustworthy source, but that rumor never picked up any legs. But they didn’t have a bone to pick with him, Boomer and Gio just wanted to know if the guy actually was a real, legitimate person.
Recently, it was controversial former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown, who took issue with the NFL news aggregator and Bro Bible writer, seemingly over Kleiman posting a TMZ story in August about another warrant issued for Brown’s arrest over non-payment of child support.
While Kleiman remains a mysterious figure in the online sports world, this just goes to show that he’ll literally do anything for engagement. And those of us who engage with social media have a more difficult job than ever to separate fact from fiction and real news from farming for clicks.
[Dov Kleiman on Twitter]
