Normal folks showing up to work to find the office locked up probably wouldn't jump to anger. Personally, my first thought would be that I forgot what day it was or that I missed a holiday on the calendar. Others might assume it was in error but quickly jump at the opportunity for a day off.
NFL players on the other hand relish their work and are absolute workaholics. It's hard to make it at the highest level without having a deep commitment to the work. So you can imagine, showing up and finding the gym locked up is a bit of a stressor for an All-Pro.
That's the predicament Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Chandler Jones found himself in on Tuesday. He took to Instagram to blow off steam and may have gone a little too far.
Chandler Jones blew up on Raiders over gym being locked
B/R Gridiron caught screenshots of Jones's Instagram posts before he took them down.
Jones appears to be texting head coach Josh McDaniels. He appears to send a screenshot of texts he sent to Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler first (though the messages don't show who they're addressed to), where he asks Ziegler, "How do you expect me to play this season and I can't even get my GM on the phone? Thanks for that portal... Should I call Josh? Or will he not pick up either?... Why y'all bring me to Vegas? To play with me?
In the message that appears directly addressed to McDaniels, Jones says, "It's a shame that I am a top athlete with 112 sacks in the NFL and I have to go to a local gym to work out during the season for no apparent reason this is wild to me Josh and you know it you need to do what's right".
We know pretty much no facts about the situation, so it's impossible to diagnose what's happening here. It could be anything ranging from a rogue technical error with a security badge to a less benign issue like Jones being intentionally locked out of the facility. The latter, frankly, feels incredibly unlikely. There's no logical reason for the Raiders to intentionally block a top defensive player from the facility.
Jones took the posts down, perhaps indicating that the issue was resolved, but not before the world saw him go absolutely haywire on his general manager and coach.
Regardless if this was a whole lot of nothing or something substantial, the damage to the Raiders reputation has been done by Jones unleashing the messages out for the public to see on his Instagram.
If you saw Jones hitting the weights at a local Planet Fitness today, now you know why!
