Last week, star NFL receiver DeAndre Hopkins ended his free agency, signing with the Tennessee Titans. A few days later, NFL reporter Paul Kuharsky texted Hopkins and got some innocuous but fun quotes from the Titans’ new star and his nickname for the coach he’d be working with.
“The team is just amazing all around. Great guys, great coach, great staff,” Kuharsky said that Hopkins told him. He also added some thoughts on the influence of Tennessee OC Tim Kelly, whom Hopkins played for in Houston. “Great guy. Write that. Pretty boy Kelly. That’s his new name.”
Nothing crazy but a fun little exchange to set the tone for the season ahead.
Unfortunately for Kuharsky, the person who gave him those quotes was not, in fact, DeAndre Hopkins. The former ESPN reporter and Nashville radio host who now runs his own website provided a mea culpa to his readers on Friday.
About Those Quotes… @DeAndreHopkins Informs Me I Was Scammed https://t.co/vxltq2FTqJ
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) July 22, 2023
“So DeAndre Hopkins reached out to me about a Thursday tweet where I shared a few quotes I believed I got from him in a text exchange,” wrote Kuharsky. “It turns out they were from someone with an old phone number of his who decided to play me by acting as if he was Hopkins when I reached out.”
Saying he’s “still tortured” by the mistake, Kuharsky says he deleted the tweet and hoped that anyone who aggregated the quotes would “take them down,” but he obviously doesn’t have control over that.
The reporter added that he has told Kelly that the “Pretty Boy Kelly” nickname was a fake, though there’s a decent chance that the incident will end up willing it into existence all the same. It sure seems like that’s the biggest takeaway from Kuharsky’s readers.
Too late. Pretty Boy Kelly is sticking https://t.co/H6R77tVz9T pic.twitter.com/W9WBR54aRp
— the metten burger (@themettenburger) July 22, 2023
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.