The odd story of the fake Emeka Egbuka X account posting about the veracity of CTE takes another turn.
On Wednesday, an X account seemingly belonging to Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka posted the question, “Is CTE even real?” That set off a ton of negative responses as it went viral, and was about to put the second-year NFL player in very hot water. However, shortly after the post went up, the Buccaneers Communications account quoted it and wrote, “The below account is neither owned nor operated by Emeka Egbuka. It is in no way affiliated with Emeka or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”
Compounding the strangeness was the fact that the account had been operating normally, as if it were the NFL player’s actual X account. It also has more than 7,500 followers and, as Pro Football Talk noted, it was followed by the gold-checked account of the NFL Players Association. It’s also followed by the NFL Films account and several NFL media members.
The account has since been suspended by X.
Adding to all of that intrigue is the revelation by Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel that the official Buccaneers X account had tagged this fake Egbuka account nearly 60 times in posts since they drafted him out of Ohio State last April. The team was still tagging that account as recently as January 3, and according to an FOS source, they simply got “duped.”
Longtime Buccaneers beat writer Greg Auman said he was suspicious of the account, though the banality of the content made it “Odd, but harmless.” That is, until Wednesday’s viral CTE tweet, which could have had severe consequences on Egbuka’s reputation (and may still, since it’s likely some who saw it still think it was him).
Egbuka seems to stick to Instagram when it comes to social media use, and that’s probably for the best. Given the lack of guardrails and free-for-all mentality of X, it’s a wonder this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often.