The Colts Were Bullied Into Deleting Their Minecraft Themed Schedule Release Video Because it Was "Insensitive" to Tyreek Hill (also may have violated Microsoft IP rights)
It's almost impressive how the NFL has managed to turn something as mundane as the releasing of a schedule into something so ridiculously elaborate and drawn out. I'm sure none of us would be old enough to remember this, but there must have been a time when the NFL would say, "Here is the schedule", and that was it. Surely that must have been the case at some point. I'll have to ask my grandfather about it. Maybe he remembers.
The NFL had kinda hit the sweet spot with their schedule releases about five(ish?) years ago. There was a point where it was ridiculous enough to be laughed at and poked fun of, but not over the top enough to be annoying. When the NFL would make their grand announcement as to what day the NFL schedule would be announced, we could at least rely on the NFL to announce their schedule on that day. But then someone on the Chargers social media team just had to start releasing their schedules in ways that were actually funny and creative, and all hell broke loose from there.
Once the NFL realized they had something fans liked, it was only a matter of time before they stretched it out into a month long event. Now in the days leading up to "schedule release day", the NFL seemingly draws games out of a hat, and releases bits and pieces of the schedule for no rhyme or reason at all. The international games all come out together. Teams start revealing their home & away opponents, but NOT revealing the dates along with them. For some reason, half of the Eagles schedule was just thrown out there. Schedule leaks, both real and fake, were in abundance. At one point yesterday I found myself on "schedule prediction Twitter", which is a place that absolutely should not exist, but very much does.
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If you're not careful, you'll find yourself trying to reverse engineer your team's schedule using the various clues left by random Twitter accounts, before you eventually realize "Wait a minute… why do I care about this at all?" There is simply way too much discourse surrounding something that quite literally could (and probably should) be an email.
Schedule release day has turned into the Super Bowl for NFL social media teams. Unfortunately, for the Colts social media team this year, the pressure of the moment got to them. I'll give them credit for coming out with a solid game plan. They just couldn't execute. As far as wacky zany schedule release content goes, the Colts original Minecraft themed video this year wasn't a home run. But I'd say it was as solid double. They had dolphin-Tyreek Hill being arrested by the Coast Guard, frog-Patrick Mahomes breaking up a Rough N' Rowdy fight between his drunk driving dad and John Rocker, chicken jockey-Kyler Murray (because he's wee), they Liz Gonzales'd Will Levis with a bus. There was some solid stuff in there.
But in the end, the lights were too bright. They fumbled the ball when it came to getting proper legal clearance from Microsoft. They felt bad about hurting Tyreek Hill's feelings. They pulled the video, then hit up the @nba_paint guy to haphazardly throw together 18 weeks worth of royalty free MS Paint football schedule art.
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Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Chargers, the team who started this whole schedule release video phenomenon (and do it better than anyone) did manage to get the proper clearance from Microsoft. The Los Angeles Chargers legally released a Minecraft schedule release video of their own.
Good try, good effort Colts. I see what you were going for. It was a respectable schedule release video effort. I really wish they would have stuck with the "We fucked up and didn't get the proper clearance with Microsoft" excuse, without throwing in the "we were insensitive to Tyreek Hill" part. Is Tyreek Hill really a player who's feelings we need to protect? Yes, the way he got arrested before that game last year was kinda bullshit. But he's had his fair share of other legal issues. He doesn't strike me as a guy who's going to lose sleep over a cartoon dolphin arrest joke. Now the Colts just look like cowards. Even though in reality, "pulling the video" from the internet does nothing. The video still out there. It's not like their work went to waste. There's arguably more people watching it, and definitely more conversation surrounding the Colts schedule release video now that it's been deemed "controversial". Come to think of it… maybe this was the Colts plan all along. They now have one of the most talked about schedule release videos in all of the NFL schedule release day.
Well played, Colts. Kind of…