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How NFL Players Look for True Love (Giacomini)


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Scott Pollack

Cortland, N.Y.

It can be hard for NFL players to find Mrs. Right.

Their workplace is nearly all-male. Their hours can go from pre-sunrise to post-sunset. Many players fear the women that they do meet will regard them as winning lottery tickets or dumb jocks. Or both.

So, a few of them are quietly calling an audible on their smartphones. They're using the dating app Tinder—and giving no indication that they play football on their profiles.

"When I do find somebody, I want it to be real," said New York Jets right tackle Breno Giacomini, who uses the service.

A photo from the Tinder profile of New York Jets tackle Breno Giacomini. Breno Giacomini

There are numerous online-dating sites and platforms, but several Jets use Tinder, a free smartphone app that is useful for travelers who want to meet locals. In Cortland, a city of 19,000 in upstate New York where the Jets are holding training camp, at least 11 players had active Tinder profiles in late July.

The app lets people search for other users within a radius they specify, which must be between one and 100 miles. People see photos of potential mates. If interested, they swipe the photo of the person they like to the right. If not, they swipe to the left. If two people indicate mutual interest in each other, Tinder alerts both and lets them send each other messages through the app.

On Giacomini's profile, there are no pictures of him in an NFL jersey. The four photos show the 28-year-old, 318-pound lineman smiling and wearing a short-sleeve shirt or tank top. He looks like a construction worker—which is what he initially tells women he is.

The facade cracks after he meets his dates in person. "A few weeks later, it's like, 'What do you have to do on Sunday?'" he said. His reply: "'I have to do work.'"

Teammate Chris Pantale also conceals his profession on his profile. "I want them to get to know me as a person," said the 24-year-old tight end, who chose two pictures of him hanging out with buddies for his account.

Of the 11 Jets with profiles, six chose pictures of themselves in Jets gear. Half of safety Calvin Pryor's six photos showed him celebrating his first-round selection in this year's NFL draft. One showed him shirtless.

Through a spokesman, Pryor said he now has a girlfriend and has deleted his Tinder account.

Cornerback Kyle Wilson said he joined Tinder to try to meet women he wouldn't encounter otherwise. Football groupies don't appeal to him. "You don't want anything too easy," he said.

When the app matches him with a woman, Wilson, 27, avoids cheesy lines. "I'm a pretty straightforward guy. If you're interested, just say what comes to your mind," he said. "'Hey, how you doing?' Get to know them, so you feel what they say back, and go from there."

Wilson has yet to meet any of his online matches in person. Neither has rookie defensive end Ikemefuna Enemkpali, who downloaded the app when he got to Cortland and uses it primarily to fight training-camp boredom. He and his teammates get together in dorm rooms and give each other Tinder advice. "I'll be like, 'Nah, swipe left,'" he said.

Enemkpali's profile has two photos: a headshot and a full-body picture of him in a track jacket and sunglasses. He said a former college teammate from Louisiana Tech encouraged him to show more muscle.

"Because I got big ol' arms and stuff, he'd always tell me, people want to see you in a tight-fitting shirt. I'm like, no! I don't need to draw no extra attention to myself," said Enemkpali, who is 6 feet 1 and 272 pounds. "I can stand by myself as a good person."

After winning the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks in February, Giacomini signed with the Jets and moved to the New York area. He has gone on several online dates and said he isn't technically lying when he tells women he's a construction worker. "I did do construction, growing up with my father, and I still do the side jobs there when I go back home," he said.

The women eventually figure it out. Besides dodging questions about his Sunday whereabouts, Giacomini must deal with fans who notice his massive frame. "After a while, it's, 'Hey, how come this guy wants to take a picture with you?'" he said. "And it's like, 'Well, they think I play football or something.'"

Here in this sparsely populated area, it has been easy for women to match up with Jets players online. Ithaca College graduate student Sarah Eisenschmidt said she half-jokingly reactivated her Tinder account last month because she knew the team would be holding camp here. "I was kind of just figuring Cortland's pretty close to Ithaca," she said. "May as well give it a try."

The 23-year-old student said she didn't recognize any of the Jets players she matched with by name and hasn't exchanged messages with any. Even if she did, she said she might be too nervous to go on a date with an "intense" football player.

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They need to go to clubs and ball the fck out and let all the dime pieces flock to them.....screw this incognito sht........go ahead and do this dumb tinder sht when your retired from the NFL and none of these girls give a sht about you anymore.  Then see what girls are gonna want you for you and not for the little money you have left over from ballin the fck out all those years. 

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They need to go to clubs and ball the fck out and let all the dime pieces flock to them.....screw this incognito sht........go ahead and do this dumb tinder sht when your retired from the NFL and none of these girls give a sht about you anymore. Then see what girls are gonna want you for you and not for the little money you have left over from ballin the fck out all those years.

Every weekends like a Chris Breezy video!

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They need to go to clubs and ball the fck out and let all the dime pieces flock to them.....screw this incognito sht........go ahead and do this dumb tinder sht when your retired from the NFL and none of these girls give a sht about you anymore. Then see what girls are gonna want you for you and not for the little money you have left over from ballin the fck out all those years.

^^^ Truth. Plenty of time later to hang out in a Target parking lot alone smoking synthetic weed and greasing your own pole anonymously. Ball out while people still care who you are. DCL
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