X user Pretty Rickey. Screengrab via X.

On Thursday, news broke that the Jacksonville Jaguars had signed former No. 1 overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence to a new long-term contract. As these things usually go, the news was broken at pretty much the same time by major NFL insiders like Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport.

Rapoport sent his tweet at 6:45 p.m. ET, even shouting out Lawrence’s agent Jay Courie and giving his X handle some love, just in case you needed a reminder that the relationship between agents and insiders has always been under scrutiny.

Schefter sent his tweet two minutes later at 6:47 p.m. ET reporting the same news.

This is often how the game is played. The national insiders own 99% of the important scoops that happen in the NFL because of the relationships inside the sport and the followings they have built among fans over many years. But Schefter and Rapoport were not the first people on social media to have the story.

That honor belongs to X user @PrettyRickey213.

At 6:20 PM ET, 25 minutes before Rapoport, Pretty Rickey tweeted that the Jaguars had finalized their extension with Lawrence.

We’ve seen this happen before. Every now and then a random social media user will get a scoop and beat the professionals at their own game. Maybe they know someone who knows someone or saw someone at a storefront.

But a funny thing is happening this NFL offseason. Whoever @PrettyRickey213 is, and whatever @PrettyRickey213 does, Pretty Rickey seems to know what’s going on in the NFL world before anybody else. In fact, a look at some of the biggest NFL scoops of the offseason shows Rickey beating the biggest, most famous, and most notable NFL insiders by some distance and even taunting them along the way.

The account appears to have been reactivated on April 18 after going offline temporarily. Although the tweets aren’t available from before April 18, the account had made traction with scoops on Calvin Ridley and Brian Burns. Since then, Rickey has incredibly and mysteriously broken consistent NFL news before anyone else. Sometimes even by days or weeks.

Here are a few examples:

Odell Beckham Jr.

On April 18, PrettyRickey213 came back out firing, saying Odell Beckham Jr. would be signing with the Miami Dolphins after the 2024 NFL Draft.

Rapoport and Tom Pelissero reported OBJ’s signing with the Dolphins on May 3, a week after the NFL Draft.

Jared Goff and Amon-Ra St. Brown

PrettyRickey213 tweeted that Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff would be signing a new deal with the team at 8:43 a.m. ET on April 24. Later that morning, Rickey also tweeted that Amon-Ra St. Brown would become the highest-paid receiver in the league at 10:04 a.m. ET through a new extension.

Ian Rapoport reported the St. Brown signing at 11:46 a.m. ET, over 90 minutes after @PrettyRickey213. Even more fascinating was that Schefter reported on that same day that there was no deal “imminent” for Goff in Detroit after St. Brown’s signing, which conflicted with the PrettyRickey story.

Schefter would break the news of Goff’s new contract with the Lions nearly a month later on May 13. Rickey celebrated by taking a victory lap over Schefter after the ESPN insider’s report.

Tyler Boyd

Rickey had former Cincinnati Bengals WR Tyler Boyd moving to the Tennessee Titans on May 2. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported the signing on May 7, a full five days later.

Justin Jefferson

Rickey beat Rapoport by 42 minutes when reporting that Justin Jefferson had signed a contract with the Minnesota Vikings that would make him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history.

Darren Waller

Perhaps the most astounding piece of news from Rickey this offseason was nailing the retirement of Darren Waller. The New York Giants tight end announced his retirement on June 9. However, @PrettyRickey213 had Waller retiring all the way back on April 23.

Rickey hasn’t batted a thousand on his scoops. They had the Patriots trading back or selecting J.J. McCarthy in this year’s draft, later owning up to the mistake and others. For what it’s worth, Rickey is currently also touting a potential McCarthy holdout with the Vikings in a signing bonus dispute that could become an interesting real-time test of their reporting prowess.

So who is @PrettyRickey213? An NFL executive burner account? One for a powerful agent? Someone with inside information in the league office? A clairvoyant Dov Kleiman? A fan that pieces things together and hopes to get lucky? Or, as the account claims to be, is it “the people’s NFL insider?”

Whoever it is has a persistent track record of getting the lead on several major stories this offseason ahead of the likes of Schefter, Rapoport, and everyone else. Sometimes it’s by an hour or so, but sometimes it’s by days or even weeks. These aren’t minor stories either; these are some of the biggest transactions and contracts in NFL history.

And they have been broken by a mysterious, anonymous X user with less than 25,000 followers whose avatar is Spuds MacKenzie, a fictional dog who was a mascot for Bud Light in the 198os. Cue the Brian Windhorst meme.