Aristotle once observed that the only surefire way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing and be nothing. Or something like that — we weren’t there. But at least this much is certain about the Ancient Greek philosopher who had a profound impact on Western learning: He had no football skills whatsoever, and he never sent a Tweet. Yet, while he didn’t have a social media account like so many of today’s armchair philosophers, his wisdom holds up.
We mention this because last Sunday turned out to be a pretty rough day for fans of the Baltimore Ravens and its star quarterback, Lamar Jackson. He not only came up short in a truly painful 28-27 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, completing only half his passes, but the five-year veteran made a rookie mistake on Twitter. After the game, a Twitter user tagged Jackson in a tweet that suggested that the quarterback — who is reportedly seeking $250 million in guaranteed salary in his next contract — should never have let the game come down to a 67-yard field goal attempt from Justin Tucker in the final seconds that came up short. “Let Lamar walk and spend that money on a well-rounded team,” the critic recommended to the Ravens front office.
Jackson’s response was, shall we say, undiplomatic. It included the common social media instruction to “STFU” — which in this holiday season could possible mean “serve the fruitcake, uncle,” but we suspect it likely was intended as “shut the F-word up,” which sports writers across the country have helpfully described as “profane.” Jackson’s tweet also mentioned that the original poster “never smelt a football field,” and he then threw in some additional crudities that we will not burden our readers with by repeating.
