Bleacher Report columnist Mike Freeman boldly predicted before the season that Matt Ryan would have a disappointing the season, and so would the Atlanta Falcons.
Related: Vegas claimed a Super Bowl favorite an hour before the AFC Championship game had even finished
Ryan will likely be named the MVP of the league before he plays in Super Bowl LI against the New England Patriots, and Freeman admitted he was wrong in a column he wrote Wednesday.
However, he also acknowledged the ugly side of sports. After the Falcons started winning games and Ryan started playing at an MVP level, Freeman started receiving death threats and threats against his daughter.
"On Twitter, some Falcons fans threatened to rape my daughter, a child," Freeman wrote. "One threatened to rape her while making me watch. Several different Falcons fans made sexual assault jokes after both the divisional and conference rounds. A few other Falcons fans merely said I should be brutally murdered. They weren't joking.
This isn't to say every message from Falcons fans was of this nature, but this series of comments in recent weeks is easily the most threatening, ugly language I've received on social media. I've never seen anything like it from any fanbase in the past."
People make inaccurate predictions all the time, and some set themselves up for ridicule. But to attack someone's family and send them death threats is despicable. It's only a game, and no one deserves those kinds of threats—especially ones involving death or harm to innocent children.
(h/t Bleacher Report)
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