When West Virginia running back Wendell Smith got the phone call from the Philadelphia Eagles that he was coming to the City of Brotherly Love, he quickly flipped through said phone and deleted his Twitter account. It was already too late.

In addition to tweets about not wanting to play football in Philadelphia and what a bunch of losers live in Philly, Deadspin had already screen-captured this little gem:

The negative and sometimes nasty tweets were from several years ago and were, according to him, the thoughts of a much younger athlete. Shortly after being drafted, Smallwood didn't dodge questions about the tweets.

"The stuff on Twitter — I was young," said Smallwood, according to Pennlive.com. "It's real embarrassing. I don't believe anything I said. I've definitely grown since that stuff was sent out. I've learned from it."

I believe it. The tweets were from several years ago at a time when same-sex marriage was illegal in most states. Things have changed so much in five years. He was 17 and still in high school. Sure, he deleted his account once he realized there could be a problem, but we can accept that he has learned a lot in the last five years and just wants to move onto the next phase of his life.

His views on the city of Philly have obviously changed dramatically in the last 48 hours as well.

So while Smallwood doesn't get a "pass" for his tweets, his acceptance of them and his acknowledgement of the need to move on is welcome. Of course, if he does something like this again, we can look back at this tweet. But for now, we wish Smallwood success with the Eagles and thank him for taking responsibility.

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