During NFL championship Sunday, Steelers linebacker L.J. Fort sent out this tweet.
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/i_Serve24/status/1087183117629222912 [/embed]
That's true. In terms of points scored, Harrison Butker (Chiefs), Will Lutz (Saints) and Stephen Gostkowski (Patriots) were third, fourth and sixth in scoring this season. The Rams' Greg Zuerlein was 12th, and he played in only 11 games this season.
Meanwhile, the Steelers have Chris Boswell. He missed 12 kicks this season and could be directly blamed for team's loss at Oakland and the tie in Cleveland.
Boswell, as much as any individual player, can be blamed for the Steelers' absence from the playoffs. The team's owner was sure willing to point that out.
Many on Fort's timeline assumed he was making a connection to his own team's kicking woes by way of passive-aggressively complimenting kickers on the other squads.
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/Jadenncoxx/status/1087380399473479685 [/embed]
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/Kennywooder/status/1087339225656315904 [/embed]
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/IrishGmc/status/1087189315271213057 [/embed]
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/JoeSteelerFan/status/1087359831961452544 [/embed]
Good points. The marginal, sub-package linebacker is throwing shade at the awful kicker with the yips?
Nope. No locker room discord or "culture problem" here.
You know what else those teams had? Defenses that created turnovers. The Rams, Patriots and Chiefs were among the top eight takeaways in the league. The Saints had the second-best rush defense.
That irony wasn't lost on Fort's Twitter followers.
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/RReese84/status/1087369962975625218 [/embed]
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/michaeljmccune/status/1087383113691471872 [/embed]
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/tdc129/status/1087347450782859265 [/embed]
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/wwurmm/status/1087335303319310336 [/embed]
I suppose — suppose — Fort could've been blissfully ignorant of how his tweet could've been interpreted.
And I suppose — suppose — he could've just been making an observation about the four kickers.
After 13 hours and hundreds of responses, Fort tried to spin the comment as if he was merely trying to shower praise on the other teams' kickers.
[embed width="350" height="450"] https://twitter.com/i_Serve24/status/1087390028219797504 [/embed]
If that's the case, and we are giving the benefit of the doubt to Fort, then he still shouldn't have done it. Think before you tweet. If you are smart enough to know the quality of the other kickers in the NFL, then you shouldn't be dumb enough to miss that most folks are going to see this as a backhanded swipe at your own guy.
Sharks are circling the Steelers. Don't throw more blood in the water.
So many of the Steelers' problems in recent years have been born on social media.
• Antonio Brown on Facebook Live. And Twitter. And Instagram.
• Le'Veon Bell tweeting about the Patriots before a playoff loss to the Jaguars.
• Martavis Bryant taking shots at JuJu Smith-Schuster on Instagram.
• Bud Dupree sniping back at a heckler on Twitter.
These guys apparently have no concept of how their unfiltered streams of consciousness impact their team being viewed as a bottomless pit of chaos.
Just put down the phones and walk away.
