One of the biggest rumors of the NFL offseason is that one of the Philadelphia quarterbacks is going to get traded. So when the football forum site gridironfans.com put up a link that said “Donovan Mcnabb Traded To The San Francisco 49ers” it seemed entirely plausible. Until, of course, you clicked the link.
The site “credits” ESPN’s Michael Smith with the scoop, and someone went to a lot of trouble to spoof ESPN’s NFL page to make this look as legit as possible. They probably should have tried to use spellcheck.
Someone Just Went to a Lot of Trouble to Start a Donovan McNabb Rumor
The first indicator is a headline reading “Donavon Mcnabb” and not Donovan McNabb. Second would be getting the name of the town correct. Then there’s leading an ESPN story with Espn, and since when does “the NFL” confirm any story like this? The best line, however, is “one of San Frans 1rst round draft picks,” which is not exactly compliant with the AP stylebook. And wonderful punctuation too.
Here’s a link to the full screen grab. Good try, internet.
(Update: It turns out, it may have fooled some people, after all. Egg, meet face.)↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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