NFL

Matt Patricia burner Twitter conspiracy theory unravels

Matt Patricia, the rocket scientist-turned-NFL coach, was smart enough to not make a burner account on Twitter.

But that didn’t stop a 20-year-old in Utah from convincing people that the recently fired Lions coach was trying to defend himself under the Twitter account @EddyPLionsFan, a conspiracy theory that took off before the truth was revealed this week.

Dylan Cardwell — not Patricia — was the brain behind the faux-burner account, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday, after he had the internet believing otherwise.

After reading stories about an alleged Bill O’Brien burner account, he was inspired to make one pretending to be another embattled NFL coach, using Patricia’s middle name, Edward, and last initial to form a not-so-subtle user name, and off he went.

“I was a true believer,” Cardwell told the Free Press on Wednesday night. “I thought it was Bill O’Brien and Adam Gase behind (his alleged burner account), so I was curious to see how easily it would be for someone to make a burner account for someone famous. And as I found out, it’s pretty easy with a little planning.”

Cardwell fired off his first tweet from @EddyPLionsFan on Sept. 3, replying to a story from a Lions beat writer with a defense of Patricia.

Matt Patricia
Matt Patricia Getty Images

“Coach Patricia learned a lot from coach belichick. He just needs to get his guys and the sky is the limit,” he tweeted.

Cardwell spent the rest of the day tweeting back at fans and beat writers with support for Patricia, as if he were Patricia himself. Then he went quiet until Monday, two days after Patricia was fired.

“You act like Coach Patricia was the problem! If his players had listened to him we wouldn’t even have this conversation,” @EddyPLionsFan tweeted back at a fan criticizing Patricia.

The account’s activity caught the attention of many, leading to stories from The Big Lead, Deadspin and Barstool Sports suggesting it was Patricia’s burner account.

But Cardwell finally came clean on Wednesday, tweeting a video from his regular account (@TheRamsReportIG) that showed him switching to the @EddyPLionsFan account on Twitter.

“I honestly was not expecting to do as much as it did,” Cardwell said. “Honestly, like I thought there would be something like mainly just within the Lions fan base, there would be a little bit of chatter. … It really got a lot bigger than I had anticipated. It went from, in just a little over a day, it went from one follower to now we’re at like 2,500, I think. So definitely unexpected.”

The potential burner account took on a life of its own but also shed light on the dark side of Twitter, with the account receiving at least one death threat.

“There was several people telling me that I suck, that I ran the organization into the ground, that I should never have a job in football again,” Cardwell said. “And then there were a few other people who, honestly I think were just angling for a response, but they were very supportive in saying that I had done the best that I could.

“I did have a lot of potential, they were excited for me getting hired from the Patriots. And then there were a few pretty nasty ones, including violence, death threats, but that’s as you’d expect from Twitter.”