Look above this sentence. That's a screenshot of the NFL's Facebook page about an hour after one of the most controversial endings in league history. To the left is a fairly innocuous post about how Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was roughed up during the game, but doesn't acknowledge its (literally) ridiculous finale.
Remember that screenshot. But first, some background:
The Packers lost to the Seahawks in Monday Night Football on a last-second Hail Mary pass by Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson -- a pass that was actually intercepted and let stand as a touchdown after the NFL's replacement officials had what can only be described as a refereeing fiasco. Initially, one ref signalled touchdown and another touchback, meaning he thought it was an interception. After a review, the call (the one that was a touchdown) stood, and eventually the game ended.
Why were the refs replacements? The league and regular officials' union are currently embroiled in a labor dispute that has resulted in referees from the lowest rungs of organized football overseeing the NFL preseason and first three weeks of the regular season.
Okay, now back to the screenshot above. Take another look to refresh your memory.
Courtesy of a series of tweets compiled and tweeted by CNBC social media producer Eli Langer, let's look at the original post after the ending in question. The NFL Facebook page had this photo and caption:
Very clever of NFL Facebook page to use photo of a different catch to represent "Hail Mary" that won the game... twitter.com/sethmcguire/st…— Seth McGuire (@sethmcguire) September 25, 2012
Only problem? That is not, in fact, the hail mary that won -- or lost -- the game, depending on which ref's signal you looked at. Or of any hail mary. It's some other pass from during the game. Clearly, that could give someone the wrong idea.
A little while later, the NFL's Facebook page had the same photo, but a different caption:
@sethmcguire @normmacdonaldeven more interesting, the rewrite twitter.com/BrianFNMcDonal…— Brian McDonald (@BrianFNMcDonald) September 25, 2012
Then that, too, disappeared, and NFL fans on Facebook were greeted with the post at the top of this article. But this actually wasn't the NFL's only moment of social media schizophrenia Monday night:
Wow, @nfl deleted this tweet! RT @nfl: Touchdown or Interception? #GBvsSEA— Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) September 25, 2012