Ian Rapoport Twitter

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Ian Rapoport Twitter Fake

NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport announced on Friday night that he was suspended until Oct. 22, leaving many to wonder what he did.

In his statement sharing news of the suspension, Rapoport said he “posted something to my social channels without clearance from NFL Network, which went against its guidelines.”

There was some speculation the suspension was related to Rapoport posting about the Tennessee Titans having an unauthorized practice. That is unlikely the explanation, because Rapoport would almost certainly have deleted the offending tweet. His tweet regarding the practice is still up on his account.

We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport further explained the reasoning for this. “This is not the end of the story because while this means he’s not going to sign the an offer sheet, or a restricted free agent offer sheet with anyone, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is going to be on the team next year,” Rapoport said, transcribed by WEEI. NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport has covered the league since 2009, previously serving as Patriots beat reporter for the Boston Herald for three seasons. 334k Followers, 130 Following, 1,224 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Ian Rapoport (@rapsheet). Ian Rapoport rumors, news and videos from the best sources on the web. (Twitter link via NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport). The Ravens will now have $3.5M in additional cash this offseason.

So what happened?

Jane Slater, one of Rapoport’s colleagues at NFL Media, deleted a tweet Friday that might explain things.

In her deleted tweet, Slater seemed to shed light on the suspension.

Sobre o Ian Rapoport, a Jane Slater tweetou isso e apagou depois pic.twitter.com/kO00DXdV7t

— Victor (@victorfrazaao) October 10, 2020

Slater wrote in the deleted tweet:

'Backstory: Sad that it took me reposting his 'Manscape' IG video for this to rise to this level of severity. To be very clear, I thought it was funny and I’m not ok with my friend and colleague getting punished for it under false guises of double standards.'

It appears that Rapoport posted a video on his Instagram story in mid-September promoting Manscaped, a product for male grooming.

“The perfect tools, for your family jewels,” reportedly was one of the quotes Rapoport used in the video.

According to Fantasy Life App CEO Yasin Abbak, Slater brought more attention to the video by tweeting it, leading to a reply from Rapoport. Slater later deleted that September tweet.

I remembered that Ian replied to Jane Slater’s original tweet that linked to Ian’s manscaped promo vid. Here is Ian’s reply to that tweet, and Jane’s tweet is now deleted. Makes sense that the Manscaped ad is the reason for his suspension.

Sorry Ian. Oct 22 will be a good day. https://t.co/xLYmNrK0Jjpic.twitter.com/RMFIYVCUG3

— Yasin Abbak (@YouFoundYasin) October 10, 2020

If this indeed is the reason for the suspension, it’s unclear whether someone found the video to be inappropriate in nature, or whether Rapoport failed to disclose the partnership before using his social media channels to promote the ad.

What we do know is that Rapoport has been suspended until Oct. 22.

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A high profile sports media mystery arose last night when NFL Network reporter, Ian Rapoport, posted the following tweet announcing his suspension for some type of social media violation.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 10, 2020

With over two million followers on Twitter, followers were mostly drawing blanks as to on what could have been the piece of content that got Rapoport in hot water with his employer.

Ian Rapoport has 2.3 million followers and no one seems to know what he posted to get himself suspended.

— Chris Walder (@WalderSports) October 10, 2020

The leading theory for much of last night was that his reporting on the Titans’ Covid outbreak and their subsequent unauthorized workouts might be the culprit.

If Ian Rapoport got suspended from NFL Network for reporting that the Tennessee Titans, who have had a huge COVID-19 outbreak, have been working out at a TN High School against the NFL quar protocol, it means the NFL knew that the Titans were doing this and were trying to hide it

— Linda Meyer (@thelindameyer) October 10, 2020

If anyone wondering what happened https://t.co/pJgJo0oPvepic.twitter.com/L2fyKmOoxv

— ً (@HeismanNewton) October 10, 2020

But another theory soon emerged.

Story will be up a bit later.

Rapoport posted an ad for Manscape, which is to clean up your groin area, without approval and that is why he got nicked.

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) October 10, 2020

Even though Marchand is a very well connected sports media reporter, some were not buying his reporting.

He didn’t get suspended for that Manscaped ad. He was suspended for the Titans workouts retweet. My speculation is that someone from the Titans got pissed and sent a scathing email to Goodell and the president of NFL Network and they used to razor company as a (man)scapegoat https://t.co/ZQLOMcRBdN

— Herb Lawrence (@Ecnerwal23) October 10, 2020

So what actually happened here?

Marchand is indeed correct that this all stems from a Manscaped advertisement…..yes a Manscaped advertisement is why the network’s biggest newsbreaker will miss a considerable amount of the season. Here is what happened.

In Mid September, Rapoport posted a video onto his Instagram promoting the Manscaped Lawn Mower. The video is now deleted.

NFL Reporter, Jane Slater, commented on the video and Rapoport and her had a pretty uneventful conversation about the video.

Sorry Ian. Oct 22 will be a good day. https://t.co/xLYmNrK0Jjpic.twitter.com/RMFIYVCUG3

— Yasin Abbak (@YouFoundYasin) October 10, 2020

While the original video and Slater’s tweeting of the video are now deleted, The Big Lead did oddly cover this. From their article, a few quotes from the Rapoport’s video

“The perfect tools, for your family jewels.”

“You don’t want any nicks when you’re cleaning up, you know, that area.”

“There’s LED lights, so you can see everything that’s going on down there.”

“Here’s a pro tip, put it in a drawer, lock it up. Keep her hands off it.”

If you think this whole thing is silly and unworthy of serious consequences, you’re not alone. In fact, Slater came out and said the same thing in a now deleted tweet after news of Rapoport’s suspension broke.

There you have it. Ian Rapoport did a stupid video for a pube trimmer. Jane Slater thought it was funny. The NFL Network didn’t take kindly to it and decided to make this a big thing by enforcing some rigid and dated social media policy that likely centered around ensuring social media sponsorships don’t conflict with existing NFL sponsorships (in this case the NFL has a relationship with Gillette).

Nfl Rumors Twitter

While I understand why such a policy exists, and the need to enforce it, the NFL’s handling of this is actually counter productive as it makes the NFL look pretty heartless and humorless and actually gives more promotion to a non NFL sponsor.

Ian Rapoport Twitter Fake

Keeping Rapoport off the air only hurts NFL Network, but shaming him into a public apology for something that nobody except the NFL (and perhaps Gillette takes offense to) ensures a negative publicity cycle that makes the NFL look unreasonable enforcing a policy that literally nobody cares about. This is a situation where nobody really wins, except for Manscaped who is getting a ton of free promotion because the NFL is frankly being just unreasonable and vindictive.