Despite Wild Bills-Chiefs Game, Aaron Rodgers Still Dominated Twitter During Divisional Round: TRAINA THOUGHTS
1. Twitter is a horrible place most of the time. (You should still give me a follow, though!) But one of the rare occasions in which Twitter is actually fun is during a big sporting event.
Twitter enhanced the enjoyment of the four unbelievably entertaining playoff games this past weekend. According to Twitter, there were 58% more tweets about the divisional round this weekend than the one a year ago.
While you might have expected the Bills-Chiefs' 42–36 overtime game to generate the most tweets, that wild game wasn’t enough to topple Aaron Rodgers.
Thanks to the Packers' quarterback becoming a lightning rod thanks to the controversial opinions that he loves to share, the weekend was all about him when it came to the social media service.
Via Twitter, here were the most-tweeted-about players this weekend.
1. Aaron Rodgers
2. Josh Allen
3. Tom Brady
4. Jimmy Garoppolo
This isn’t all that surprising because as I said on Twitter the morning after Green Bay’s loss, Twitter turned into a full-blown celebration when Rodgers was eliminated from the playoffs.
Here were the most-tweeted-about divisional playoff games.
1. 49ers vs. Packers
2. Bills vs. Chiefs
3. Bengals vs. Titans
4. Rams vs. Buccaneers
This one is surprising because many have said the Bills-Chiefs game was the greatest playoff game in NFL history. Yet, the desire to mock Rodgers was stronger than the desire to tweet about it.
In an interesting twist, the most retweeted NFL tweet from the weekend had nothing to do with Rogers or Bills-Chiefs. It came from the Bengals after they pulled off an upset win at Tennessee thanks to rookie kicker Evan McPherson, who nailed four field goals including the game-winner.
2. There's a lot of talk about Tom Brady retiring. He addressed this on his SiriusXM show Monday night, although he didn't really say anything new despite everyone trying to act like these were shocking comments.
I bring this up because I just want to say that if Brady does indeed retire, I sincerely hope he goes into broadcasting. I think he'd be an outstanding analyst. It would also be fascinating to see how much a network would pay for Brady's services. With Amazon in the market for a Thursday Night Football analyst and Jeff Bezos having unlimited money, I'd imagine Brady would get a monster offer.
3. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce both talked about how they improvised the final play in regulation before the Chiefs' game-tying field goal during their postgame press conference Sunday night.
Here is the video of the play in which you can hear Mahomes yell out, "Do it, Kels," right before the snap. Very cool stuff.
4. Speaking of Travis Kelce, one Chiefs fan found his mom at Arrowhead Stadium following the comeback victory and thanked her for giving birth to the future Hall of Fame tight end.
5. ESPN and Dick Vitale sadly announced Monday that the iconic college basketball announcer would be sidelined for the season because of serious throat issues.
Back in November, I wrote that CBS and ESPN must do whatever it takes to allow Vitale to call an NCAA tournament game, which he has never done. Let me reiterate this point. If Vitale's throat can improve by mid-March, CBS and ESPN need to do right by him and come to a deal that lets him call ONE tournament game.
6. This week's SI Media Podcast will feature not one, not two, but three guests. WWE superstar Roman Reigns will be on to talk about the Royal Rumble, which takes place Saturday. Joe Buck will be on to preview the NFC title game that he will call. And Jim Nantz, who was on last week, will return, to talk about that wild Bills-Chiefs game and to preview the AFC title game. The podcast will be out early Wednesday morning, so make sure you subscribe.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Stitcher.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy 69th birthday to former WWF star The Honky Tonk Man, who had one of the better "controversial" title victories back in the 1980s.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.
