Moments before the 2018 NFL Draft opens, quarterback Josh Allen is on an apology tour for tweets sent when he was in high school, which were unearthed Wednesday night.
On NFL Network Thursday evening, the Wyoming quarterback took responsibility for the social media posts, which contained racial slurs and offensive language, according to Yahoo! Sports.
"First off going back to six years ago, I was a kid. I'm not the same person I was," Allen said. "Obviously we were young and dumb -- me and my friends -- and that's what we did. We made mistakes; I own up to it. I've learned from it and I've learned throughout the way. This is just a reiteration from what I've learned through my journey going to [Junior College], going Division 1. I love my family, I love my teammates. Obviously this is a very embarrassing moment but the support I got from my teammates at Wyoming and at my Junior College has been outstanding. They know who I am, I know who I am. Obviously it was not the best situation but I'm looking forward to tonight."
Most of the tweets were from 2012 and 2013 and have since been deleted.
We've seen late-stage surfacing of controversial information on social media cause players to tumble in the draft -- notably Laremy Tunsil's gas-mask bong video in 2016. That might not be the case for the big-armed QB.
NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reports that teams have been reticent to judge Allen based on tweets from high school.
Allen believes NFL clubs have gathered enough background over the past several months to know he's grown from the tweets and doesn't believe the controversy will hurt his draft stock.
"I don't think they will. I hope they won't," Allen said. "I think that I've spent enough time with the coaches that are picking me. I think they understand who I am as a person, how I've grown the last few years and I hope they can see who I really am -- if they've done their research, talked to my coaches, talked to my teammates; I think they'll get a pretty good sense of who I am as a person."
Allen has been rumored to go as high as No. 1 overall to the Cleveland Browns, and most analysts have the quarterback being selected in the top 10. If he tumbles, it could be more about accuracy concerns than old tweets.
Allen's Twitter engagements will also lead to post-draft questions about how the quarterback might be accepted within the locker room. The quarterback's apology was sincere, but he's not yet done answering questions about those tweets.
