T.J. Lang might play left tackle (LT) for the Green Bay Packers, but it’s a RT that’s landing him in social media heaven — and likely the NFL’s version of the doghouse. Close to 60,000 RTs, that is.

In what will likely become the watershed moment for bringing back the currently-locked out NFL referees, the Packers were defeated on Monday night in Seattle on one of the more controversial touchdown calls in NFL history.

Replays suggest that Packers’ defensive back M.D. Jennings came down with a hail Mary interception to preserve the win for Green Bay as time expired. The replacement officials thought otherwise and ceded the win to the home team Seahawks.

But this post isn’t a diatribe against the refs. It’s a eye-opener for social media.

Most notably, the reach of Twitter. After the game, Lang tweeted a profane tirade on the social media website — basically, facetiously thanking the NFL for allowing inferior referees to decide games.

In 34 minutes, Lang was retweeted 40,362 times. Read that number again. More than 10,000 of those retweets came in a 10 minute span.

Since I began writing this post, Lang has been retweeted more than 7,000 times. He’s averaging 930 retweets per minute.

His followers have jumped by the thousands as well – starting around 47,000, it’s now up to close to 54,000 new fans.

UPDATE: It’s been close to 16 hours since Lang’s initial tweet. His retweets have slowed to 67,391, but his followers are now up to a staggering 107,407.

Expect him to be fined. Chad Johnson, one of the more prolific tweeters in NFL history was once fined $25,000 for tweeting during a game. If everyone who retweeted Lang’s post were to kick in $.50, he should be able to cover such a fine no problem.

Speaking of fines, it took 40 minutes for Lang to produce another tweet, but rather than walking back his previous statement, he basically told the NFL to take a flying leap and use his pending fine to pay the regular officials.

Social media at its finest. (Please note sarcasm)

As I sign off Lang is up to 52,956 retweets.

WARNING: IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED, DON’T SCROLL DOWN TO SEE LANG’S TWEET.

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— TJ Lang (@TJLang70) September 25, 2012

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2012 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Green Bay Packers, Replacement Refs, TJ Lang. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.