On Friday, Stephon Gilmore was simply doing his best to stand up for a former coach of his and inadvertently caused plenty of shots from Dallas Cowboys fans being directed to Dan Quinn, who coordinated the team's defense from 2021 to 2023.
Gilmore, who currently remains a free agent after his deal with the Cowboys expired in March, tweeted that "no coach would switch what they did all season in a big game like that."
Many Cowboys fans took it as a shot at Quinn, who led the league in man coverage rate in 2023 but switched up the gameplan by playing primarily zone coverages versus the Green Bay Packers and getting cooked by Jordan Love in a playoff loss last January.
His tweet immediately ignited a firestorm from fans, who launched a barrage of tweets suggesting Gilly was talking about the former Cowboys defensive coordinator. From posts reading that "(Quinn) sabotaged the team on the way out" to others saying "no way you're imply Dan Quinn switched up the scheme for the playoff game against the Packers" and one even posing the seemingly valid question: "Why not come out with this while the guy was still in the building?"
The thing is, Gilmore was never talking about Quinn. In reality, he was praising former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and even praising him for his renowned gameplan that slowed down the high-flying 2018 Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII. The Pats presented a different look there to combar the Rams' wide zone attack and held Sean McVay's offense to three points.
Gilmore's defense of Belichick didn't have odd timing: The legendary coach has been receiving a lot of criticisms this offseason as a result of the documentary "The Dynasty," which portrays the Super Bowl years of the Patriots as well as their eventual demise.
A quick look at his profile would've made this abundantly clear but knee-jerk reactions are commonplace on Twitter/X, so it's no surprise it quickly went viral:
If anything, this was another lesson for today's social media users: Getting context before reacting to anything you see on the internet is always key.
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