The Browns and Eagles have the best response to the NFL's anti-GIF policy
The Cleveland Browns may not win on the field but on Sunday, they won Twitter with a nice dig at the NFL's recent stupid anti-video, anti-GIF policy.
In the second quarter, Browns quarterback Cody Kessler connected with Tyrelle Pryor for a touchdown. The Browns' official Twitter account responded with this: a GIF from a custom-made Electric Football table-top game.
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While the Browns tweet was fun, the trend actually started earlier in the day when the Philadelphia Eagles tweeted several similar GIFs for their game against Washington.
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A little over a week ago, the NFL, apparently panicking from plummeting ratings, threatened to fine official team accounts for sharing any sort of videos or GIFs on their social media accounts (though the league may have quietly loosened some of those new rules after the backlash).
Sources from two teams told Mashable earlier this month they feel the new policy is meant to limit the creativity of what teams can do online during games in order to drive attention and eyeballs to official NFL accounts, as opposed to social accounts operated by franchises.
Since the NFL's new rules include even non-game-related GIFs, who knows how long these posts will actually stay up or if the Browns and Eagles will just take the fine. Either way, fans liked it.
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No word if the two social media teams planned this together or it's just kismet.
Previously, the Carolina Panthers had a few cheeky tweets making fun of the new policy, only to later delete them.
Topics X/Twitter
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
