There’s been a lot of discussion of “burner accounts” (anonymous social media accounts from prominent people, often used to put out positive seeming-third-party comments on themselves) in sports over the years. There have been some cases where those accounts have at least been definitively linked to people (although not necessarily operated specifically by them), and there have been cases of prominent sports figures discussing their own use of burner accounts (even if those specific accounts haven’t necessarily been identified). And so that has much of the world on the hunt for potential sports figures’ burners, and that drew a lot of discussion around under-fire Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive coordinator Matt Canada Tuesday. Several Twitter sleuths pointed out that a Twitter account defending Canada (@DannyFootball77) seemed to be linked to an email address that could theoretically be Canada’s team email address:
https://twitter.com/PPP_Benjamin/status/1708936327390015719
Only Matt Canada would make a burner using his work email address 💀 pic.twitter.com/dpcMmC90xK
— GhettoGronk (@TheGhettoGronk) October 3, 2023
Fan discovers that Matt Canada used his Steelers team e-mail address to create burner account. 🤦♂️
The burner account has tweets criticizing Mike Tomlin, Kenny Pickett and the Steelers defense.. https://t.co/HyjfNheJMJ
— NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) October 3, 2023
Great detective work by @PPP_Benjamin for finding what looks like #Steelers OC Matt Canada’s burner account (@DannyFootball77).
Benjamin went through the "forgot password" process, and found the email address associated with it: matthew.canada@steelers.com pic.twitter.com/pzYtiXLEZE
— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) October 3, 2023
Yes, that’s certainly conceivable. There have been cases of team coaches and executives linked to burner accounts, although some have tried to deny personal operation of those accounts. There have also been discussions of prominent sports figures, including Kevin Durant, using burner accounts, but few actual links to specific accounts there. However, “ma************@s*******.***” could correspond to any number of names and domains. And, as several people noted, that isn’t actually how most NFL team email addresses work:
(whispers) That's not how NFL team employee email addresses are configured.
— Mike Tanier (@MikeTanier) October 3, 2023
#Herewegohttps://t.co/j9UqOJkbi2
— Rob Gregson (@NFL_Rob) October 3, 2023
As noted in that article, most NFL team email accounts tend to end in @teamnname.nfl.com, rather than @teamname.com. Of course, the Steelers do own Steelers.com, and it does not redirect to Steelers.nfl.com (which actually asks for a login), and there are plenty of things that can be done with redirects around emails, so this isn’t necessarily conclusive proof that the Danny Football account is not linked to Canada. (And it’s possible that it’s someone he knows, even if it isn’t through a team-linked email.) But the notes here are valid, and should be considered before anyone concludes this is definitively Canada.
At any rate, regardless of if there are any actual links behind @DannyFootball77 and Canada, looking at that account from “Dan Robbins” is certainly interesting. The account joined Twitter in August 2022 and had 0 followers and 1,679 accounts followed as of Tuesday night. And that account has never posted a tweet itself, just replies to other accounts. And most of those replies are specifically defending Canada (similar to some other accounts we’ve seen in the past), and that’s a sharp contrast to the general discussion around the Steelers’ OC. Here are a few of those:
https://twitter.com/DannyFootball77/status/1708916768494821710
https://twitter.com/DannyFootball77/status/1708909922975441214
https://twitter.com/DannyFootball77/status/1708909219519386075
https://twitter.com/DannyFootball77/status/1708906158012948793
https://twitter.com/DannyFootball77/status/1708903012637233185
Meanwhile, Canada admitted himself to Sunday’s NFL on CBS broadcast crew that his offense isn’t designed for comebacks:
"One thing Matt Canada told us when we sat with him yesterday at their hotel, they're not quite built to come back from big leads. And so the way they start games, so critical…" "And, you know, running game and defense, and this game, they haven't had either." (1:25.) pic.twitter.com/PNcrJCXMiS
— The Comeback (@thecomeback) October 1, 2023
It remains to be seen what exactly the @DannyFootball77/Canada connection is, if there is in fact one. And maybe there isn’t one at all. But the amount of time this account specifically devotes to defending Canada is certainly interesting. Even if the password email is maybe not completely conclusive.
