Find a new slant.
Nelson Agholor said on Thursday afternoon that he does not have a Twitter burner account.
On Thursday, the interwebs got in a tizzy when a photo-less account was spotted by Twitter sleuths responding to Eagles reporters and fans with a bunch of pro-Agholor and anti-Carson Wentz tweets. The account name (@efam33) was seemingly a nod to Agholor’s middle name, Efamehule, and used words like “we” and “us” when talking about the Eagles’ receivers and Agholor.
But the fact that there was no actual evidence to support the theory of a burner account didn’t stop many from grabbing pitchforks.
“It’s not me,” Agholor said to the crowd of reporters around his locker. “So which of you guys are going to tweet, ‘It’s not Nelson’?”
Either Agholor was foolish enough to create a Twitter account using his middle name to defend himself and put down teammates or someone used Agholor’s recent struggles and poor standing with the fan base as an opportunity to create some chaos. If the goal was to get attention, it worked. And after the Bryan Colangelo/Sixers fiasco in 2018, Philadelphia is hypersensitive about burner accounts.
Agholor, 26, was actually the one who brought up talk of the supposed burner account on Thursday afternoon. He wanted to clear his name.
“You know what, I’m going to be honest with you,” Agholor said. “I have a friend that’s in Tampa, we FaceTimed today in my break and he’s like, ‘This is crazy, somebody has talked about you having a burner account, which is nuts.’ I was like, ‘Dog, what is you talking about?’ And I talked to our PR people and they told me.
“I just want to know, which one of you, my friends in the media are gonna go on your Twitter handle and say, ‘Alright, stop playing with Nelson. This wasn’t him.’”
One reporter told Agholor they weren’t even going to address the speculation.
“I would like for you guys to address it,” Agholor said. “You guys know me well.”
And that’s fair. While we have no way to truly know whether or not this account belongs to him — and all the tweets have since been deleted — Agholor has always handled criticism head on. When necessary, he answers tough questions, just like he did in the wake of Sunday’s loss to the Patriots.
The timing was suspect too. The account just popped up a couple days ago. Earlier this week, Agholor deleted his Instagram account to eliminate distractions. So Agholor deleted Instagram to get away from negativity and immediately created an anonymous Twitter account to confront it?
For the record, Agholor does have a public Twitter account: @nelsonagholor.
“Social media, it’s a place where you can influence for the positive, but once the energy isn’t helpful, there’s no need for it,” said Agholor, who added that he deleted his Instagram because his family members were reading the comments.
“I gotta focus on the Eagles, the guys in this locker room and our loyal fans that need us to play well. And I have to have positive energy. It’s a part of eliminating distractions.”
As for the knee injury Agholor suffered in Sunday’s loss to the Patriots, he said he felt better on Thursday, but still missed practice for the second straight day. He’s hoping to get on the field Friday and is still holding out hope about playing Sunday against the Seahawks.
This has been a very disappointing season for Agholor and he has become the target of much of the fan base’s vitriol. So even though Agholor denied being the culprit behind the Twitter account, there will be many who simply don’t believe him and will continue to voice their displeasure on Twitter to @efam33.
If it’s not Agholor’s account, he won’t have to worry about reading it.
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