Weasels of the Week: "Twidiots"

The worst thing you can do on Twitter is threaten to kill someone. Unfortunately, that's been happening with some frequency of late.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre last week, there were some copycats who were implying via Twitter that they were intent on doing the same thing. Luckily, nothing came out of these misguided, ill-advised tweets.

However, there were two cases of NFL players being threatened by what I like to call "twidiots" this week.

The first involves beleagured Jets QB Mark Sanchez, who was benched on Tuesday after a horrid performance against Tennessee, resulting in Gang Green being eliminated from playoff contention. One Bravee Grandou threatened to kill Sanchez come Wednesday, all because he lost a huge chunk of cash betting on the game. Grandou later said he wasn't going to follow through on the threat after all, and tried to pass it off as blowing off some steam, according to the New York Daily News. The truth is, Grandou's rant was likely fueled by also being inebriated to the point where his first impulse was to see Sanchez dead.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the struggles of 49ers kicker David Akers led to him getting some threats. Never mind that the Niners are in a tight race for the NFC West title with Seattle, whom they play on Sunday. Both Akers and the twidiot have deactivated their accounts. Akers, according to Yahoo!, is 25-35 in field goal attempts this year, and still in line to possibly be named to the NFC Pro Bowl team. Akers isn't the first Niner to get death threats. If you refer back to January, WR-KR Kyle Williams received threats after his misadventures in the NFC title game vs. the Giants. Former teammate Josh Morgan, now with Washington, got death threats after the Redskins lost to St. Louis earlier in the year. Lest we forget, Billy Cundiff, now a free agent after both Baltimore and Washington have cut him this year, was getting threats after the Ravens were screwed out of the Super Bowl by New England.

The common threads in these cases are likely two things: 1) a large amount of money, such as the wad Grandou lost, was being wagered on these games, and 2) the twidiots were overly sloshed when they made the threats. Yahoo! dismissed Grandou's apologies as half-hearted, and an attempt at getting free publicity. The truth is, in the wake of Sandy Hook Elementary, any attempt at issuing a death threat, even to a pro athlete, is going to be treated as a serious threat now. The solution's an easy one.

To paraphrase a popular anti-drunk-driving slogan, friends shouldn't let other friends post death threats on Twitter when drunk, or even sober. Thus, the twidiots get the Weasel ears this week.