Many draft experts had Ole Miss offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil as their top player available in the 2016 NFL Draft. Tunsil has been considered that rare franchise left tackle prospect, and a franchise left tackle is arguably the most valuable type of player in the NFL these days outside of the quarterback position.
So, it was expected that Tunsil would go in the top-five tonight, or at worst the bottom of the top-10… until a video surfaced on social media shortly before the draft of Tunsil smoking weed out of a gas mask bong. The video was tweeted out from Tunsil’s account, and was apparently hacked (and this is one instance where we are to assume the “I got hacked!” excuse was indeed accurate).
Well, Tunsil kept falling in the draft as primarily a result of this video (and ESPN and NFL Network even covered this), before the Miami Dolphins finally selected him with the 13th overall pick. Surely the Dolphins never expected arguably the draft’s top prospect to be at pick No. 13 coming into the draft (or at least before they became aware of the video).
Laremy Tunsil went from a decidedly boring No. 1 overall pick to the most exciting No. 13 pick of all time.
— Eric Edholm (@Eric_Edholm) April 29, 2016
Tunsil talked with Deion Sanders after being selected by Miami, saying that his Twitter account was hacked and that he found out about it when he was in the green room (the draft waiting room):