In today’s NFL, any change to a player’s Instagram page can be perceived as a sign of trouble behind the scenes.
Julio Jones scrubbed his social media of Falcons photos last year while claiming he wanted a fresh start for his page — only to hold out a few months later. There was also Antonio Brown’s more blatant Instagram shots at the Steelers.
So, it should come as no surprise that NFL fans noticed that Cardinals quarterback Josh Rosen deleted every Cardinals post from his account this week. Yet, this probably doesn’t mean that the Cardinals are ready to give up on last year’s No. 10 pick for Kyler Murray — at least not right now.
Earlier this week, Rosen posted on Twitter that his Instagram was hacked. He followed up that tweet a few minutes later by saying that his page was back.
Rosen’s Instagram was active throughout the season with Cardinals-related posts. It’s actually a shame that this one was deleted (expand to see the caption).
That’s a great Instagram post. Even if I felt betrayed by my NFL team, I’m keeping that post up … for the likes.
Rosen also kept all the Cardinals content on his Twitter account. If there was a problem with the Cardinals, the scrubbing should have crossed both platforms. I mean, you have to be consistent with the social-media shade. That’s the rule.
But this likely has more to do with his account’s hacking than any disdain for Cardinals management as they continue to leave the door open to draft Murray with the first pick. Users responded to Rosen’s initial tweet that they found it odd that the Cardinals quarterback was responding immediately to DMs.
I don’t think Rosen was playing the long game here by preemptively claiming his Instagram was hacked just so he could delete all the Cardinals photos with minimal blowback a few days later. That would be brilliant — but still, unlikely.
