The Raiders should be embarrassed by their awful tweet after Derek Chauvin verdict

This was bad. Really bad.

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On Tuesday afternoon in a Minnesota courtroom, former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for his role in the murder of George Floyd back in 2020.

Many athletes, teams and leagues posted emotional responses to the verdict. LeBron James tweeted one important word. The Minnesota Vikings shared a thoughtful message. And the NHL, well, the NHL posted an unbelievably bland and emotionless statement in which they didn’t even use George Floyd’s name. The NHL’s statement was terrible.

But then a few hours after the verdict, the Las Vegas Raiders stepped up and decided to go with one of the worst tweets you’ll ever see. The team decided to go with a three-word tweet in an image that someone who works for their franchise had to create. It simply said: I CAN BREATHE 4/20/21.

For real. They did this:

What made that all the more unbelievable was that the team proudly pinned the tweet so that everyone who checked out their Twitter feed wouldn’t have to search around for this horrible tweet about the killing of George Floyd.

That has to be one of the worst, most tone-deaf tweets every posted by a professional sports franchise and I have no idea how something like that could make its way to the Raiders’ official Twitter feed. I mean, what were they thinking?

Well, later Tuesday night we found out that Raiders owner Mark Davis was the person who came up the tweet. THE TEAM’S OWNER CAME UP WITH IT!

Davis told Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “That’s my tweet. That was me. I don’t want anyone in the organization taking heat. I take full responsibility for that.”

Davis also added, via Tashan Reed of The Athletic: “I wasn’t watching the talking heads; I was listening to the family. And I was trying to take my lead from them. But if that’s (the “I Can Breath” t-shirts) are what the cops are wearing then, really, it is a bad statement.”

Davis also told Reed that the “I Can Breathe” wording came from George Floyd’s brother who said “Today, we care able to breathe again.”

#Raiders owner Mark Davis said the "I Can Breathe" wording came from George Floyd's brother Philonise, who said "Today, we are able to breathe again."

Davis added: "If I offended the family, then I'm deeply, deeply disappointed."

He also said the post won't be deleted.

— Tashan Reed (@tashanreed) April 21, 2021

 

This tweet is so incredibly bad and the fact that this could happen with a professional sports franchise is both sad and infuriating. It’s also insane that nobody could have stepped in and told Davis that they shouldn’t go with that message. Somebody should have done that in this situation. You just have to do that, no matter who the order is coming from.

This was all just so bad.

Really, really, really bad.

Be so much better than that, Raiders.

Geez.

Quick hits: The wild Lakers catfish story, explained… Super League jokes… Ted Lasso season 2 trailer… And more. 

– Mike Sykes walks you through a wild story about Lakers fans being catfished by a fellow fan and podcaster, Vivian Flores. It’s an insane story.

– Fans had so many jokes about the Super League and it’s apparent collapse just a day after we all found out about it.

– Apple released the trailer for season 2 of Ted Lasso and man, it looks so good.

– Zion Williamson’s new Jordan Brand shoes dropped on Tuesday with a Shakespeare-themed ad.