Thomas Jones, Leon Washington and… Twitter?

As Twitter is gaining more and more power by the day, certain agencies and industries are using it to gain public praise for debatable issues.  A prime example of this surfaced earlier today as a dispute between the New York Jets and the agents of Jets running backs Thomas Jones and Leon Washington arose on Twitter.  According to the Jets, both running backs have missed a number of “voluntary workouts” during this offseason.  The reasoning for the missed workouts according to both agents is one of the most common NFL issues… underpayment.

Jones’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, responded to the complaints with the following Tweet, “The media has made a big deal about Thomas Jones missing voluntary workouts.  Let’s see if they take the same approach with Leon Washington” (www.NJ.com).  This Tweet was then followed by a response from Washington’s agent Alvin Keels, notifying the public that the Jets are worried about Leon’s absence but that he will be in communication with the organization presumably about Washington’s pay and contract.

This may not seem like the biggest deal however, the angle in which these agents are going about solving this issue is quite open and public.  This allows all fans and Twitter followers of these agents to share their opinion and have as strong of a voice as any media.  Twitter allows any single person to make a drastic impact on almost anything.  This negative publicity doesn’t strike the Jets as acceptable behavior as they feel as if player contracts and negotiations should be between the organization, the agent and the player – not the world.  I find the agents method very interesting since they can win over a certain percentage of the public and be able bring that to the table.  Lets see how the negotiations go and if the public opinion has as strong of an affect as the 12th man does in a football game.