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Roddy White Takes To Twitter To Plead Case The cousin of Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Roddy White was recently arrested. It's not really news, but I can understand why the Atlanta Journal Constitution published a story on it: White is a public figure so, fair or not, his relatives, friends, and business associates are fair game in their mind. Still, I can't fathom why anyone would really be interested in this story from a football perspective. A cousin's arrest doesn't reflect poorly on a player unless he had a hand in the incident. And since White's cousin is only 21 years old, there is a feeling of "would the AJC care this much if he wasn't a celebrity's cousin?" More to the point, White has a reason to be angry that, according to White's Twitter posts, the newspaper was hounding him for a comment. As ProFootballTalk,com noted, White tweeted “Can the atlanta journal constitution not call my phone anymore about stuff tht has nothing to do with me if its not football related don’t call my #!@%*# phone” White wrote on Twitter Monday. “Better yet don’t even associate me with criminal activities I aint done nothing u f***ing a**holes.” (Note: We added the stars there.)" So I understand, even agree with White that he should not have been the focus of this account. READ MORE: The Best Acquisition in the History of Each NFL Team But I do think he overstepped his bounds with these tweets. For one, if there wasn't a lockout, I would expect someone, either in the NFL or the Falcons front office, to chastise or even fine him for using that kind of language publicly. It probably falls within the "code of conduct" ideals, and since wasn't an "in the heat of the moment" situation where he was caught swearing on camera during a game or after a loss in the locker room or parking lot, he should have shown a little better judgment. Furthermore, I'm surprised to see ANY star athlete use twitter in this way at this moment. We're just a few weeks removed from the firestorm set off by Rashard Mendenhall. When that story was all over the news, I believed that Mendenhall certainly has a right to say whatever he wants, but to do so in a 140-character tweet, so informally, so matter-of-factly, is a mistake. If you want to give an opinion about something serious, do it with a little more thought and through a more serious medium. The same goes with White. All White had to do was call up a reporter from ESPN or the NFL Network and tell them his side of the story, that "I don't think this is appropriate." Someone would have run with the story. Why? Because it involves a football player in the football world....not a young man's arrest and an attempt to connect him to a big name star.
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