NFL Twitter Account Hacked: Roger Goodell Not Dead

The NFL's official, verified, 19-million-follower Twitter account was briefly hacked Tuesday afternoon and reported that the league's commissioner, Roger Goodell, had unexpectedly died.

Of course, it was all fake.

But the Tweet sent the sports world into the briefest of frenzies trying to confirm what would have been big news.

(Maybe "NFLpassword" wasn't the most secure password they could have chosen?)

The Goodell tweet has since been deleted but, like everything on the internet, will be preserved forever:

And the NFL assured everyone, yes, it was a hack. And Goodell is fine.

Whoever runs the NFL's Twitter account shouldn't feel that bad. Mark Zuckerberg — the Facebook founder who should know better than all of us — had his Twitter hacked recently.

His password, according to those responsible? "dadada."

(The hack was traced back to a widespread LinkedIn breach. This is your friendly reminder to change your LinkedIn password, if you haven't done so recently.)

Credit the NFL attackers, though, who didn't let up, even after the league took down the initial Goodell-is-dead tweet:

Image via via SSG Teddy Wade, public domain