When Tunsil was pressed about whether he took money, he said, “I’d have to say yeah”. Tunsil had tumbled down the draft board after a video surfaced just as the draft was starting that showed him smoking marijuana from a bong attached to a gas mask.
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Was it Tunsilitis? He said it had happened before and probably resulted from something he ate.
As if that weren’t bad enough, even as the draft was being held, another hacked account – from Tunsil’s Instagram account – apparently showed a text-mail exchange between the player and an Ole Miss assistant athletic director suggesting that the player was receiving cash from the Ole Miss coaching staff, which is, of course, a major violation of NCAA rules. Instead, he wound up being picked 13th by the Miami Dolphins and now is expected to get a deal worth $12.4 million.
“I’m drafted, in the National Football League, so I’m good”, Tunsil stated many times throughout the press conference.
“I made a mistake”.
Goodell was asked about the Tunsil incident on Friday and he described it as “exciting”.
“We feel good for tonight but if and when there are more players we can add, we are not going to sit here and [be] complacent”. But I wish that young man well.
The Dolphins said they did an extensive background check on Tunsil during the pre-draft process and said he was the No. 2 overall player on their board. “Why don’t we take a break and regroup tonight?'” Winston said, per ESPN. “All the research we had done, we were very comfortable with his character”.
Tunsil missed an introductory press conference early Friday in Miami with a medical condition and later had little to say when did meet with reporters.
“It should be obvious to anyone with a second-grade education that this was a hatchet job”, said Steve Farese, who serves as Tunsil’s attorney. Tunsil said he attacked Miller because his stepfather assaulted his mother, Desiree Polingo. In fact, in the months before the draft, he was considered by many to be the top prospect in the entire draft.
They are tested at the scouting combine before the draft.
The university did not address the identity of the person Tunsil was interacting with on the Instagram post.
There’s also a stipuation that “conduct related to an alleged misuse of substances of abuse” in the last two years can force a player to enter the program.
In past years, there may have been a debate, for example, over whether the Dolphins should have taken a late-round flier on offensive lineman La’el Collins amid questions of whether he could have been a suspect in a murder (it turned out he wasn’t; he’s in Dallas now).
CBSMiami.com reported that Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said the team had been aware of the video’s existence well before the draft.
That would be Ole Miss and coach Hugh Freeze, who began Thursday ready to celebrate three players being selected in that first round, then ended it by practically inviting NCAA investigators already snooping around campus to open a satellite office there.
“They’re moving up to get the guys that they want”, Ross said. “It’s going to be a great choice”.
Be careful what you put on social media, what you choose to keep a record of, what kind of information is vulnerable and therefore should be carefully protected from the ruinous reach of hackers.
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The Dolphins made two trades Friday to secure the services of Howard and Carroo, and Grier said there were conversations about making other moves.
