In the wake of the plane crash on Tuesday that tragically killed 71 people and most members of the Chapecoense soccer club, one former NFL executive decided to use the event as an opportunity to brag about how strong the partnerships are between all 32 NFL teams. One of those teams lambasted him for it.
Joe Browne, who retired last year after working closely with the previous three NFL commissioners during his 50 years with the league, sent a tweet on Tuesday that he surely regrets.
“NFL club partnership so strong that if there were tragedy similar to Brazilian soccer crash other NFL clubs would restock affected team,” the since-deleted tweet read.
It goes without saying that the timing of Browne’s tweet was completely inappropriate. The New England Patriots were not shy in letting him hear about it, and Brown later apologized.
.@JBeonTheHill Poor choice of words & disrespectful to all who lost lives. Players are not stock; they're the most important people in NFL.
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 29, 2016
Thought I was being informative today re terrible Brazil soccer tragedy but tweet was ill-timed and poorly worded. I've deleted it.
— Joe Browne (@JBeonTheHill) November 30, 2016
Tom E. Curran of CSSNE.com describes Browne as a “longtime loather” of the Patriots, which might explain why the team called him out publicly. Curran speculates that the tweet must have come directly from the higher-ups in the Patriots organization, as someone in charge of a social media account would never take the liberty of attacking the league office like that.
As we know, there are some very obvious reasons the Patriots might jump at the opportunity to make a current or former NFL executive look bad.
Professional sports organizations do have contingency plans in place in the event of a tragedy, but one NFL spokesman wisely told USA Today that Tuesday was “not the day to discuss our plan out of respect for those who lost their lives.” Browne learned that the hard way.
