Boston TV station uses Aaron Hernandez pic in post about Pats win

This Boston TV station’s pic turned out to be a bust.

WCVB alerted its roughly quarter-million Twitter followers of the Patriots’ 24-20 AFC Championship win over the Jaguars Sunday with an image of Aaron Hernandez, the former New England tight end who committed suicide in prison last April while serving a life sentence for murder.

The image shows Hernandez diving for a ball during a 2011 preseason game against Jacksonville. The ABC affiliate deleted the tweet 40 minutes after posting it, according to Awful Announcing, which gave users ample time to comment on the gaffe.


(Photo via Elsa/Getty Images)

“How the heck are the Jags supposed to win if the Pats are playing zombies,” one user quipped.

Hernandez last played in an NFL game in January 2013, five months before he was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s then-fiancee. Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2015.

The station later explained what happened in a response to multiple accounts that called it out for the blunder.

“A news service that provides WCVB some digital content accidentally posted a pic of Aaron Hernandez in connection w/Pats AFC champ win on our social media,” the station tweeted. “It's embarrassing & unacceptable. We apologize & are working w/team to correct so something like this never happens again.”

As with the Jags, Hernandez played against the Eagles only once in his three years with the Pats, so preparing for Super Bowl LII shouldn't be too tall an order.

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