By now, we all know that Ten Ginn, Jr has been traded to San Francisco, in light of the Marshall-to-Miami trade. Trades happen all the time. In the past 2 Sundays, we have seen Donovan McNabb become a Redskin and Santonio Holmes become a Jet. It's a part of the game. But what ISN'T part of the game is Ginn's backlash at a fan.

As reported by Black Sports Online, Ginn responded to a fan on Twitter who had some smart words for him on his way out of Miami. Ginn responded to the tweet with an extremely vulgar comment, one that you will have to go to BSO to see for yourself. It was unacceptable, uncalled for and unprofessional, to say the least.

Ginn hasn't been the only victim of being extremely vocal on Twitter. Larry Johnson went on a rampage, arguing back and forth with fans as well as talking smack about his head coach (he was later released from the Chiefs), and Santonio Holmes went off on a fan who was critical of him regarding his alleged drink throwing incident by saying the following:

Holmes has recently claimed his Twitter account was hacked during this particular situation. Yeah, okay.............. Holmes, Johnson and Ginn are only a handful of players who have misused the purpose of social networking.

I'm a fan of social networking overall. It's a great networking tool, a good way to re-connect with friends and also an innovative way to meet people with common interests. But for athletes, this may be one avenue they want to avoid. Yes, they are still common folk like us and have the same interests. But what they aren't are regular people, and they'd be foolish to think so. With gossip sites like TMZ targeting athletes more and more (see Tiger Woods), it's becoming more evident that NFL players are no different than Hollywood celebrities.

In the past, I was all for players being on Twitter. It was a way for players to connect with fans and get to see their off-the-field persona. But as of late, there have been instances that show this may not be as good an idea as originally thought. Whether players want to be, they ARE role models to thousands of kids and are put on pedestals by those who buy game tickets. While majority of the NFL players on Twitter have done a great job at using the site properly, there's always the few instances that ultimately stick out to the public. I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech. But I also believe in people choosing their battles. Every comment does not warrant a response. Being a football star and cursing fans out on a social networking site is NOT a good look for the player, their team or for the league they play in.

What happens from here will be interesting. Whether Goodell will try to fully ban players from Twitter may be far fetched, but in the long run it may be the only option if we continue to see outbursts, such as Ginn's tweets this past week. Smarten up guys... your social networking lives are trailing thin ice.