The G/O Media attempts to revive the corpse of “Deadspin” (the actual site was killed when all its writers resigned in protest in October over the firing of deputy editor Barry Petchesky) have taken plenty of criticism, but they saw a particularly embarrassing moment during the first round of the NFL draft Thursday when the site’s Twitter feed made a horrible mistake in reporting a pick. The 26th-overall pick was originally held by the Houston Texans and then traded to the Miami Dolphins, but Miami then sent it to the Green Bay Packers, who selected Utah State quarterback Jordan Love. You wouldn’t know that from the “Deadspin” Twitter feed, though, as (as seen above), they tweeted that the 26th pick saw Miami selecting Georgia running back D’Andre Swift (who wasn’t selected in the first round at all). They then followed that up with a “Damn Packers” tweet:
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/1253524112368074753
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/1253527074259771393
Another thing that’s funny there is that the Deadspin Twitter feed’s attempts to go pick-by-pick (which have seen amazingly low engagement, especially considering that their zombie Twitter account still has 995,000 followers thanks to it being transferred over from the days when Deadspin was an actual site) have completely missed some picks, like #19 (Ohio State’s Damon Arnett to the Raiders) and #25 (Arizona State’s Brandon Aiyuk to the 49ers). Here are their posts surrounding those moves:
With pick #18, the Miami Dolphins drafted Offensive Tackle Austin Jackson
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) April 24, 2020
With pick #20, the Jacksonville Jaguars drafted K'Lavon Chaisson
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) April 24, 2020
With pick #24, the New Orleans Saints drafted Cesar Ruiz
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) April 24, 2020
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/1253524112368074753
But hey, at least getting picks spectacularly wrong (as they did with Swift here) worked out better for “Deadspin” in terms of engagement than just tweeting picks (with no school or position info in many cases) after they happened. So maybe they should pivot to that.
