🩼 How the NFL Plans to Solve Hamstring Injuries

Last week, I started my beef with Dov Kleiman, and this week, I’m finishing it.

By that, I mean I’m revealing how ridiculous the 14-24-year-olds who run NFL aggregation accounts on social media are (even if they sometimes stumble into hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Trust me, I know just how dumb they can be (any ‘I Live For Football’ fans in the house?)…

Here are today’s stories:

🗞 The Big Story: Dov Kleiman’s Failed $75,000 Sale

📉 Biggest Loser: 110 MPH Ball to the Head = $100K

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Did the NFL Just Solve Hamstring Injuries?

🗞 The Big Story

The most hated man on Twitter tried to sell his account for $75,000, but even he couldn’t have predicted what would happen next.

Background: Earlier this week, NFL aggregator Dov Kleiman posted another fake rumor that 70-year-old Mark Davis and his 26-year-old “girlfriend” were expecting a baby.

Dov later deleted the post, but not before it went viral, which prompted Barstool’s Jack Mac to post a report that he heard Dov had actually sold his account after last season's NFL season.

Dov’s (Real) Identity: I made a video last year explaining that Dov is, in fact, a real person. He’s a freelance journalist from Israel who has worked for publications like LadBible.

In fact, after I posted that video, Dov even DM’d me on Instagram, offering to hop on a call to answer any questions I had.

And while I never did, AJ Perez from Front Office Sports talked to him last November.

Evidently, in that call, Dov expressed how aggregating NFL content is “draining sometimes,” although several industry sources say he’s probably making six figures per year from his impressions on Twitter alone.

Exit Strategy: However, clearly looking to exit the Twitter aggregation game, Dov DM’d several notable sports media figures, including the Founder of Snapback Sports, Jack Settleman, to see if they wanted to buy his account.

And the asking price? $75,000.

Jack admits he was curious, mainly because of how hard it is to grow an audience on Twitter, but he also said that he would have had to turn a lot things around given Dov’s less-than-steller reputation.

But the nail in the coffin for Jack (and likely everyone else who was offered the same deal) is that Twitter doesn’t actually allow for sale accounts, and people who do risk a permanent ban.

So Jack declined, which is when Dov countered with a lower amount.

Once again, Jack rejected the offer, but two sources claim that Dov successfully sold his account just a few months later.

Post-Mortum: While these sources don’t know how much he sold it for, this timeline matches a shift in Dov’s content since the Super Bowl.

But more importantly, it may explain why the payment account linked to Dov’s Twitter received nearly $21,000 worth of cryptocurrency that was deposited on February 19, eight days after the Super Bowl.

The only question now is, who’s running the account while still posing as the original Dov Kleiman?

The current best guess is it’s this guy:

@dovkleimannfl

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Who can be seen in several TikTok videos posted under Dov’s name after the sale of the account.

But as for his identity, that remains a mystery for now.

📉 Biggest Loser

This fan could make over $100,000 for getting hit in the face with a foul ball…

And it’s not in the way you might think…

Background: Last week, Liz McGuire was sitting on the third base line of a Blue Jays game talking with a friend when she was hit in the head with a 110-mile-per-hour foul ball off the bat of Bo Bichette.

The ball apparently traveled over the protective netting installed at every MLB ballpark, and medics quickly rushed to McGuire's attention.

Now, most people would have been worried about the large bump forming on their head and rushed straight to the hospital. But McGuire requested that she return to her seat to watch the final innings of the game, which unfortunately resulted in a 4-3 Blue Jays loss.

And to make matters even worse, McGuire didn’t even get the ball that hit her. As some other fan scooped it up instead.

The Aftermath: After the game, McGuire decided to go to the emergency room, where it was determined that she had avoided any serious damage and just had a mild concussion, and normally, the story would end here.

However, as soon as McGuire returned home, she posted two pictures to her few hundred followers asking the Blue Jays if they could hook her up with a ball since she never got hers.

But to McGuire’s surprise, the tweet went viral, reaching over 15 million people, including the Blue Jays, who offered her:

• Tickets to an upcoming game

• A signed Bo Bichette ball

And then card-maker Topps joined in and asked if they could make 110 trading cards with her picture and send them all to her.

Of course, McGuire agreed and said she’d auction “a limited number of cards” on eBay and donate partial proceeds to a local children's hospital.

Card Auction: However, I was genuinely shocked when I saw how much these things were going for. As of this week, only four cards were for sale, with the cheapest selling for almost $1,000.

This means if McGuire were to sell all 110 at that price, she could make over $100,000.

Not bad for getting hit in the face…

🏆 Winner’s Circle

The NFL just spent $4 million to help a wide receiver solve one of the most common injuries in all of sports.

And they might have actually found the solution.

Swiss Cheese Hamstring: Green Bay Packers WR Christian Watson has missed 11 games during his first two seasons, including eight last season, because of a pulled hamstring in his right leg.

And while hamstring strains are among the most common injuries in all of sports, most players still don’t really know how to prevent them… until now.

Before last season, Watson admitted to spending “tens of thousands” of dollars of his own money to study, treat, and prevent his hamstring issues.

According to ESPN's Rob Demovsky, Watson tried everything from:

• Massages

• Needling

• Physical therapy

• “Countless types of machines”

But after missing most of last season with the same injury, the team realized they needed to try something new.

Hometown Study: Watson and teammate Eric Stokes went to the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health for eight hours of testing on their hamstrings.

And what they found was pretty crazy.

Apparently, Watson had a 20% asymmetry in the hamstring muscle between his right and left legs. This means that his left hamstring was 20% stronger than his right one.

However, after learning this, Watson said he began working on closing that 20% gap to the point where he currently only has an 8-10% difference in strength.

And while perfect symmetry is nearly impossible, he says his goal is to shrink the gap to around 6%.

For The Greater Good: The best part is that this testing done on Watson was part of a $4 million grant funded by the NFL to study the prevention and treatment of hamstring injuries.

So, if Watson is able to stay on the field this year, it’s possible that more players can start utilizing this testing to avoid the same injury.

⏱ In Other News

• The NFL could owe you $2,500… seriously

• “Hitler is Dead”

• The (Untold) History of Kurt Benkert

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👋 Are you here for your weekly Minneapolis High School Baseball Review? Good, but I’ll keep this one short.

By the time you read this, we’ve either been eliminated from the playoffs, or we advanced to the next round.

My Thursday prediction: we win 7-2 and only strike out looking twice (this would be a new team record).

However, winning would mean we play again on Saturday against a team we’ve already lost to, and by then, it’s anyone’s guess as to what happens.

See you next week!