With the abundance of groupies and women vying for attention from a professional athlete, you wouldn’t think NFL players would need to use online dating to meet women, but a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal found that 11 NY Jets players have active profiles on the dating app Tinder.
Tinder allows members to scroll through pages of potential singles in a specified area and indicate their interest with a simple swipe, if two people swipe each other an alert is sent.
Some of the Jets players who use the app have no problem using their profession to attract potential mates, others conceal their identity in hopes of filtering out the gold diggers.
On (Breno) Giacomini’s profile, there are no pictures of him in an NFL jersey. The four photos show the 28-year-old, 318-pound lineman smiling and wearing a short-sleeve shirt or tank top. He looks like a construction worker—which is what he initially tells women he is.
The facade cracks after he meets his dates in person. “A few weeks later, it’s like, ‘What do you have to do on Sunday?'” he said. His reply: “‘I have to do work.'”
Teammate Chris Pantale also conceals his profession on his profile. “I want them to get to know me as a person,” said the 24-year-old tight end, who chose two pictures of him hanging out with buddies for his account.
Of the 11 Jets with profiles, six chose pictures of themselves in Jets gear. Half of safety Calvin Pryor’s six photos showed him celebrating his first-round selection in this year’s NFL draft. One showed him shirtless.
What took me by surprise is that many of the players listed Cortland NY, a town of 19,000 where the Jets hold their training camp, as their desired location to meet women. So the next logical question is, are these guys really looking for love or are they looking for a jump off to pass the time? Some of the guys did admit that they created a profile just to past the time and the women’s pictures are an ongoing conversation in the locker room.
(Kyle) Wilson has yet to meet any of his online matches in person. Neither has rookie defensive end Ikemefuna Enemkpali, who downloaded the app when he got to Cortland and uses it primarily to fight training-camp boredom. He and his teammates get together in dorm rooms and give each other Tinder advice. “I’ll be like, ‘Nah, swipe left,'” he said.
Now it makes sense, like online daters everywhere, some of these guys just want to look at pictures, some may be looking for a quick hook-up and a few may actually be looking for love. It’s still surprising that a NFL player would need to use a dating website to get a girl, but I guess it’s no different than Twitter, Instagram or Facebook where they dive in DM’s looking to make a connection all the time.