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" No one knows how far down the rabbit hole this Manti Te&amp;#039;o story is about to go, but, whether he was duped or we were, he&amp;#039;ll be playing in the NFL somewhere next season. And no matter how strange his crimes \u2014 and lying about a girlfriend who died of leukemia is about as strange as it gets \u2014 someone will pay good money to wear his jersey. But only if he&amp;#039;s really fking good, because fans forgive winners. We all know people who support Mike Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, and Kobe Bryant to an alarming degree because they find a way to disassociate their favorite players from the allegations after enough victories. Yet Tiger Woods, who hasn&amp;#039;t won a major since his Thanksgiving night incident in 2009, is still out on an island, only to be embraced when he dons another Green Jacket. It&amp;#039;s a weird double-standard, but one fans are happy to embrace when a title is within reach. Most people assume that this hoax will kill Manti&amp;#039;s draft stock, either because it shows a character flaw, or because of unwanted the media attention he&amp;#039;ll provide, especially once he starts dating a real human individual. But 31 teams are kicking themselves for ignoring All-American linebacker Vontaze Burfict last year, who went from a presumed top ten pick to undrafted after he showed up with a bad attitude at last year&amp;#039;s combine. All he&amp;#039;s done since that episode is lead the Bengals in tackles and mark himself as one of the best young defensive players in the league. In Cincinnati, they could care less if he had a bad weekend sometime last year, and the story will be the same for Te&amp;#039;o. He can put this strange story behind him with good rookie season and a bit of self-deprecating humor, if for no other reason than someone else in sports is about to do something really stupid. And on that note: Lance Armstrong says thank you. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a18170/manti-teo-hoax-14989935/>