ESPN's jab of Tom Brady among most viral Super Bowl tweets
Despite a spectacular performance in a losing effort, Tom Brady didn't garner much love on social media during the Super Bowl.
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Super. Bowl. Champions.
It only took three words for the Eagles' social media team to sum up the feeling of the franchise's entire fan base after the Birds defeated the Patriots to earn their first Super Bowl title.
According to analytics provided by Twitter, the Eagles' celebratory post was the most viral tweet sent on the social media platform during the Super Bowl's broadcast Sunday night.
It's no surprise the Eagles social media team stood out from the herd during the NFL's most important night. They've been impressive all season at hitting the right tone and summing up what fans are thinking. Their approach to interacting with fans on social media earned high marks when they shut down FS1 host Colin Cowherd's lazy anti-Philadelphia stereotypes with what remains a perfect tweet:
Also among the top five included a second tweet sent by @Eagles that simply stated, "We did it Philly!" and a celebratory tweet from the NFL's official Twitter account declaring, "The Eagles are Super Bowl champions!"
A SportsCenter tweet mocking Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's Super Bowl drop also cracked the top five:
The most surprising tweet among Twitter's top five was a post from Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball about Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill, who provided the Eagles' Super Bowl entrance music (not without some controversy):
Not surprisingly, the most-mentioned Eagles player was quarterback Nick Foles, who was named Super Bowl MVP and became the first player in NFL history to both throw and catch a touchdown during the Super Bowl.
Among the most widely shared tweets about Foles on Sunday night came from his teammate, fellow quarterback Carson Wentz, who was forced to sit out of the game due to a season-ending knee injury. Both Wentz and Foles are devout Christians (Foles said he wants to become a youth pastor when he retires from football).
It's also no surprise that Brady was the most-mentioned Patriots player on Twitter, especially considering he was also the most-talked-about NFL player on the social media platform last season, with more than three million mentions.
Following the game, Brady ran straight to the locker room, skipping the short greeting with Foles that has become a customary moment after the Super Bowl. Buffalo sports radio host James Kurdziel's tweet about the lack of criticism Brady received following the high-profile snub was among the most shared all evening about the Patriots quarterback.
In fact, the jokes about Brady began hours before the game, when the five-time Super Bowl champ's bold wardrobe choice for his arrival at U.S. Bank Stadium garnered quite a social media reaction. ESPN the Magazine senior writer Mina Kimes' take was among the most widely-shared.
On Facebook, things went in an entirely different direction. According to data provided by the social media giant, the most-viewed video during the Super Bowl was an ad for the league itself featuring Giants quarterback Eli Manning and wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. practicing their future touchdown celebration to the theme of "Dirty Dancing."
Unfortunately, due the NFL's arcane social media rules, we can't embed the Facebook post. But here's the commercial as it appeared during the Super Bowl broadcast.