NFL Team Uses Madden to Circumvent a Silly Rule

The National Football League has implemented a new rule for what teams are allowed to share on social media during games. During this weekend's action, one team found a novel way to work around it: using Madden.

The NFL recently added to its reputation of being the No Fun League when, according to ESPN, it banned teams from sharing videos or GIFs of on-field action on social media. (Doing so can result in fines from $25,000 up to $100,000.) It reportedly did this because it wants this kind of content to be hosted on team websites, giving it the ability to control how it's shared.

But this policy ignores the reality of how fans want to consume the sport. This caused the Atlanta Falcons' Twitter account to flaunt the rules, as it found a way to still offer fans an account of what happened during the team's game against the Chargers yesterday.

As seen in the tweet above (via The Big Lead), the Falcons sent out an animated GIF of Julio Jones making a catch in Madden. It's obviously not ideal--fans would prefer to see what actually happened--but it is a pretty funny and creative way to get around an asinine rule.