As a relatively unknown offensive lineman, Kendall Lamm hasn’t been in many headlines during his 10-year NFL career. But now he’s the subject of plenty of unwanted attention, all because of a fabricated quote that some news outlets published without checking. Lamm signed with the Eagles in March after playing last season with the Dolphins, and when he left Miami he said he appreciated the opportunity the Dolphins gave him last year. And that’s all he said, but this week an obscure website full of false information about the NFL posted a quote of Lamm criticizing the Dolphins, attributing it to an interview Lamm gave to ESPN. Lamm gave no such interview. This would have been easy to overlook if the false quote had stayed on the obscure website, but it soon spread to multiple outlets that football fans trust to report real news. Websites like Yahoo Sports, USA Today and Sports Illustrated posted Lamm’s alleged quote and still have the quote up days later. Adding to the misinformation, some professional reporters for other outlets spread the quote on social media. Now Lamm has posted a video in which he explains that he never said what he’s alleged to have said, and that it hurts to have people continue contacting him and asking him why he badmouthed his former team when he did no such thing. “I keep getting sent this article, apparently, that someone has said I slammed Dolphins culture,” Lamm said. “One, I don’t remember talking to any reporter about anything that we really dealt with with Miami and the Dolphins. Two, I was never raised that way to sit there and comment on certain things as far as culture and everything else within the locker room. Three, I have no animosity, no ill will or bad intentions toward Miami or anybody down there whatsoever. I enjoyed my time in Miami and it’ll be near and dear to me forever. When it comes to this article that I’m being sent, that’s been published, unless I just completely forgot doing this, it must have been misconstrued or taken out of context, because I have nothing but the utmost respect for everyone in Miami and the people in Miami know that. . . . I would never speak about Miami like that. Never.” False information spreads easily in today’s digital media environment, and Lamm found out the hard way what can happen when media outlets decide a quote is too good to check.
That's just a sign of the times. People don't look for news; they consume media that satisfies their confirmation bias. Dolphins fans, in particular, are antsy for a winner right now and many are willing to believe the worst about their team because they can't accept current struggles. If somebody said it, it must be true because for sake of their mental health, something has to explain what's going wrong. I expect it from fans, but for media to spread it as truth without verifying it is inexcusable. I'm NOT considering DouglieDoWrong as "media" here, BTW. The same quote that was pinned to at least another player who said it about the Browns - word for word. It wouldn't have taken more than 5 minutes to verify but it was put out by credible outlets as true because of what DeShone Kizer and Ramsey have said about the culture in the locker room. Curiously, nobody asked Kizer or Ramsey why they didn't affect the culture in a positive way. IMO, if you leave a team and talk about the locker room having a soft culture, you need to see how many fingers are pointing back at you when you point one at your former team. Honestly, comes off like sour grapes and if it wasn't the offseason, nobody would even care.
