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Posts Tagged ‘TJ Lang’

Packers’ guard T.J. Lang slams refs via Twitter

Monday, September 24th, 2012

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.

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