NFL 2012 Divisional Week Thread

Yes, that makes sense. A three year hoax, seeing as they "met" in 2009.

This is balloon boy sh*t right here. This is going to get bad.

*Legion* wrote:

Yes, that makes sense. A three year hoax, seeing as they "met" in 2009.

This is balloon boy sh*t right here. This is going to get bad utterly freaking hilarious.

FTFY.

Come on gay mormon linebacker.
I've got 5 dollars on beard. Any other takers here?

S0LIDARITY wrote:

I refuse to believe that he didn't know this Lennay Kekua never existed. Especially considering the tweets to and from her 'sister.'

It's impossible for him to claim that when:

Deadspin wrote:

"They started out as just friends," Te'o's father, Brian, told the Tribune in October 2012. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there."

There's no passing this off at Te'o getting suckered by some dude pretending to be a chick on the Internet. Daddy is on record saying "she" would travel to Hawaii and meet Manti.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Yes, that makes sense. A three year hoax, seeing as they "met" in 2009.

This is balloon boy sh*t right here. This is going to get bad utterly freaking hilarious to be the most entertaining sports news-line of 2013.

FTFY.

FTFY

EDIT:@Boogle, the possibility crossed my mind. I don't understand what you mean by Beard though.

S0LIDARITY wrote:

EDIT:@Boogle, the possibility crossed my mind. I don't understand what you mean by Beard though.

Beard

(Link is Wikipedia, shortened only because BBCode link tag fails on URLs with parentheses in them)

@LebowskiThinks wrote:

You have to admit, people always said Te'o has great intangibles

Thanks *Legion*, I've never heard that term before.

boogle wrote:

Come on gay mormon linebacker.
I've got 5 dollars on beard. Any other takers here?

That thought crossed my mind, too. At this point I'm not sure any explanation really makes sense.

I don't say this lightly but this is some seriously f**ked up sh*t.

Enix wrote:
boogle wrote:

Come on gay mormon linebacker.
I've got 5 dollars on beard. Any other takers here?

That thought crossed my mind, too. At this point I'm not sure any explanation really makes sense.

I don't say this lightly but this is some seriously f**ked up sh*t.

This story in November said, "Te'o's family was originally set to meet Kekua for the first time this Saturday". So the family allegedly never met her, despite the thing I posted above from the dad talking about how she came to Hawaii to see Manti when Manti was "home".

If the parents never saw these meetups, then they very well could be just stories Manti was feeding the parents.

... Let's just say there's no way I'm taking Boogle's $5 bet. Gay closeted Mormon is much too strong a possibility.

Still, all he needed to do to put an end to it was "break up" with her. Killing off the fake girlfriend and talking about it to the press was just self-publicizing.

*Legion* wrote:

Gay closeted Mormon is much too strong a possibility.

If that's the truth, I doubt it gets unearthed anytime soon. I'm really looking forward to the crazy explanations that are provided by him and ND. I imagine that they'll both stick to the 'Te'o was hoaxed' line for a few days. There's way too many holes in the story for that to hold up for long though.

*Legion* wrote:

Still, all he needed to do to put an end to it was "break up" with her. Killing off the fake girlfriend and talking about it to the press was just self-publicizing.

It was just pathological. Still is. You read those statements from ND and Teo? Utter horsesh!t.

If I'm an NFL GM on the fence about him after his underwhelming BCS game performance, I'm taking a pass on him.

Maybe he'll turn out to be a 10-yr NFL starter and an All-Pro. But the kid needs to grow up.

*Legion* wrote:

Still, all he needed to do to put an end to it was "break up" with her. Killing off the fake girlfriend and talking about it to the press was just self-publicizing.

If you dump the girl with lukemia you're going to come out looking like an asshole.

Ironically the Gay Closet Mormom has me being far more forgiving than the "Publicity Hound trump up my Draft stock psychopath".

Despite the latter still getting a chance in the NFL (I mean the League has far worse types playing right now!) over the former who would maybe get a shot at the CFL.

S0LIDARITY wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Gay closeted Mormon is much too strong a possibility.

If that's the truth, I doubt it gets unearthed anytime soon. I'm really looking forward to the crazy explanations that are provided by him and ND. I imagine that they'll both stick to the 'Te'o was hoaxed' line for a few days. There's way too many holes in the story for that to hold up for long though.

I think it will get unearthed fairly soon. Te'o will not be able to get through the Combine interviews without explaining himself. And someone will leak it out, faster than Vince Young's Wonderlic fail.

Stele wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Still, all he needed to do to put an end to it was "break up" with her. Killing off the fake girlfriend and talking about it to the press was just self-publicizing.

If you dump the girl with lukemia you're going to come out looking like an asshole.

You don't give her leukemia either! You just give her Female Doggoitis.

Enix wrote:

It was just pathological. Still is. You read those statements from ND and Teo? Utter horsesh!t.

You, sir, have it on the nose.

TheGameguru wrote:

Ironically the Gay Closet Mormom has me being far more forgiving than the "Publicity Hound trump up my Draft stock psychopath".

The problem to me is that it doesn't look like one or the other. It looks like two birds, one stone. There was a much, much less media whorish way to do this.

Wow..never thought I would see a LB melt down faster than Brian Bosworth.. at least he got drafted!

AP farts out a story pegged to the two statements.

They're not reporting the key contention of the Deadspin piece, which is that all signs point to Te'o as being part of the hoax.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I'm calling the lawyers. Libel be damned.

Maybe I'm just convincing myself that I'm not a terrible person, but I still want the guy to have a legitimate shot at the NFL but my schadenfreude is through the roof here.

TheGameguru wrote:

Wow..never thought I would see a LB melt down faster than Brian Bosworth.. at least he got drafted!

The Boz wrapped up Bo Jackson well enough for Jackson to drag him into the endzone.

Manti Te'o slid helplessly off of Eddie Lacy.

Ahh the ol' Jenga defense.

ND AD holding a press conference now on ESPN radio... so far sounds like a ton of bullsh*t. Supposedly Te'o got a phone call a few weeks ago from a number he knew to be this phantom girl's and the voice associated with it informing him of the "scam"... is he saying he never met her now??

edit

ND AD addressed the "did he meet her" question with that he understands Te'o will address the media or perhaps in a statement to address that.

TheGameguru wrote:

Ironically the Gay Closet Mormom has me being far more forgiving than the "Publicity Hound trump up my Draft stock psychopath".

Despite the latter still getting a chance in the NFL (I mean the League has far worse types playing right now!) over the former who would maybe get a shot at the CFL.

I actually don't think it'd be that bad at all. I think if that was the reason and he explained it (hiding it because of his orientation), people would understand (sort of...), and he'd still get drafted relatively high. Actually, I think this won't affect his draft stock that much even if it was a publicity stunt? I mean, there are many 'character flag' guys in the NFL right now who have done much, much, much worse.

I'm on team boogle though, this is the only narrative that makes sense to me. He made up someone and he lost control of the story. Inventing a fake dead girlfriend... for what reason? To get a Heisman?

I think yeah, to get sympathy for Heisman votes and to look sensitive. Probably got him laid a few times. Cover for being gay wouldn't be so high-profile, I think he's just an ass who wanted publicity.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I think yeah, to get sympathy for Heisman votes and to look sensitive. Probably got him laid a few times. Cover for being gay wouldn't be so high-profile, I think he's just an ass who wanted publicity.

Is very bad, steal Johnny Football's Heisman. Is very bad.

Here are the three best jokes I've come up with so far, copied from the NCAA Football thread and my twitter account:

3) At least AJ McCarron's girlfriend is real, even if her body is not!

2) And I thought he was a fraud in the national championship game!

1) They're perfect for each other, because when I watched the national championship, I didn't think Manti Teo existed!

S0LIDARITY wrote:

EDIT:

Some guy on twitter wrote:

Manti Te'o wasn't missing tackles in the national championship, he was hugging his girlfriend!

IMAGE(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/Gumbie84/5mbpxx.gif)

Iridium884 wrote:

I actually don't think it'd be that bad at all. I think if that was the reason and he explained it (hiding it because of his orientation), people would understand (sort of...), and he'd still get drafted relatively high. Actually, I think this won't affect his draft stock that much even if it was a publicity stunt? I mean, there are many 'character flag' guys in the NFL right now who have done much, much, much worse.

Yes, but NFL teams aren't concerned with something being worse or not worse. It has much more to do with being a distraction. Or being a threat to the integrity of the game.

Thuggery is (more) tolerated whereas gambling is a deadly sin, for example.

Carrying out a great big lie in the media is bad. If it blows up to the point where even the casual observer recognizes it as a farce, that will be much worse than if he got pulled over for a DUI.

I expect that what they're playing for here is a sort of stalemate, trying to maneuver the story to something semi-plausible that they can stick to that can't be disproven. (The backtracking on the two having "met" is in full swing). Turn it into an unanswerable question and let everyone get bored with it.

This has to be the best Sports/Twitter scandal to date that has been uncovered by the only people actually still doing anything remotely considered sports news in Deadspin.

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

darren rovell ‏@darrenrovell
Most votes I've received on a Twitter poll (2000+). Only 1 in 10 people believe that Manti Te'o is a victim http://www.poptip.com/darrenrovell/p...

OH MY GOD LENNAY KEKUA IS KEYZER SOZE IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

It gets better. Cardinals fullback Reagan Mauia says Lennay Kekua's real, he's met her.

Quote Mauia: "I don’t think Manti was even in the picture, but she and I became good friends. We would talk off and on, just checking up on each other kind of thing. I am close to her family. When she was going through the loss of her father, I was — I offered a comforting shoulder and just someone to bounce her emotions off. That was just from meeting her in Samoa."

Mauia was "introduced" to Kekua by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, same person that allegedly introduced her to Te'o. This sets up nicely the narrative that Tuiasosopo is the hoax mastermind.

Still, that bears the question, who is this whole Kekua family that Mauia is "close to"?

Forget balloon boy. We left balloon boy in our rear view mirror sometime around 8:00 pm Eastern. We are now firmly in Keyser Soze territory.