NFL news can truly come from anywhere. Even from an online video game between complete strangers.
In what has to be one of the most random potential news leaks in recent memory, Reddit user ProbationOfficer2035 posted a blind nugget on Saturday to Reddit’s NFL thread about what he believed to be a trade. It wasn’t so much that the user had gotten some information about something in the works — it was how they got the nugget.
In this case? In a bit of wild improbability, it came from an open microphone during an online “Call of Duty” game called Warzone, which features an option to randomly team up with strangers and play together virtually. In this specific case, the Reddit user (who is a self-professed Green Bay Packers fan) just so happened to be teamed up with the significant other of Chicago Bears offensive lineman Rashaad Coward. And well, if you’ve ever played “Call of Duty” online, you often get random teammates whose open microphone can pick up virtually everything being said inside their room. Including the conversations of people who aren’t even playing the game.
As ProbationOfficer2035 described it…
Normally, this would be chalked up to nonsense. But in the immediate aftermath of that Reddit post — and likely without having any idea that someone had heard his background conversation — Coward, who was a restricted free agent for the Bears and not tendered an offer by the team, tweeted this:
Then came Sunday, when one of Coward’s agents, Brian Adkins, tweeted a followup aimed at Coward’s wife (who is an avid gamer with her own Twitch channel) that appears to confirm something did indeed happen in a random “Call of Duty” game:
Of course, none of this actually confirms that Coward is signing with the Steelers — and as of Sunday night, no deal had happened. But at least one thing is certain: The ears of the NFL’s rumor mill are everywhere, including on the other side of that gaming microphone.
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