NFL rookie A.J. Cole landed in Canada ready to play football. What he got was a geography lesson and mocked on Twitter.
Cole, who played football at Woodward Academy, was photographed as the Oakland Raiders landed in Winnipeg for a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers.
The Raiders tweeted a photo of Cole and Daniel Carlson sporting Winnipeg gear.
But it wasn’t long before an error on Cole’s shirt made him the butt of jokes.
“What the (expletive) is going on here?” Marc Silva tweeted a couple of hours later.
Cole responded to his faux pas and the ribbing on social media with humor, which infamously polite Canadians seemed to appreciate.
Cole said he bought the shirt on Amazon, and a quick search reveals more than 50 items featuring “Winnipeg, Alberta.”
But Cole left Canada redeemed, wearing a shirt of the Winnipeg Jets hockey team.
Cole saw playing time in Winnipeg. In the first quarter, he “placed a punt at the Packers’ 12-yard line, prompting the P.A. announcer to call it ‘a 30-yard punt — in essence to the 2-yard line,’ ” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“The Raiders’ 22-21 preseason win over the Packers in Winnipeg took place on a short field after concerns arose over the condition of the end zones at Investors Group Field.”