On Sunday ahead of Super Bowl 52, the NFL aired a tribute video package of former players who died over the last year.
While that concept is not at all controversial, it became so when people in U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis noticed that the tribute included disgraced former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.
The In Memoriam tribute just now, showing the NFL players who died this past year, included Aaron Hernandez.
— mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) February 4, 2018
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NFL honors the deceased up on the video board, including one Aaron Hernandez.
— Tyler Dunne (@TyDunne) February 4, 2018
The NFL did place Aaron Hernandez in the NFL Memorium.
— Daniel Beyer (@danbeyeronfox) February 4, 2018
NFL showing a video tribute on scoreboard to NFL players who died in last year. They included Aaron Hernandez.
— Brian Costello (@BrianCoz) February 4, 2018
According to Mike Tanier, of Bleacher Report, Hernandez's inclusion was brief and featured with a bevy of other players on the video board.
To clarify, the Aaron Hernandez moment during the rollcall of players who passed away in 2017 was on a slide with a half-dozen relative unknowns which flashed almost too fast to read.
— Mike Tanier (@MikeTanier) February 4, 2018
Hernandez took his own life a week after he had been found not guilty of murdering of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. Hernandez was still serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, a conviction that was later abated due to the laws in Massachusetts.
Hernandez was drafted in 2010 by the New England Patriots after a standout career as a tight end at the University of Florida. His NFL career came to a stunning end in June 2013 when he was arrested for the murder of Lloyd after a short investigation.
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