Thompson: Five years later, Laremy Tunsils NFL Draft gas mask incident still reverberates through

In 1820, or somewhere thereabout, as the legend goes, an Englishman named John Deane was in the crowd when a stable was on fire. Trying to help the farmer, Deane went scrounging for water buckets and found a medieval-looking helmet. That’s when the idea came. He put on the helmet, put a hose in through the bottom so he could breathe air, and ran inside to save the horses. In 1823, he and his older brother Charles patented a smoke helmet which they would later develop for their true love — diving.

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Sea exploration changed forever. 

In 1914, Garrett Morgan — an African-American inventor in Cleveland whose creations already included an update on the sewing machine and hair relaxer cream — patented his safety hood. Advancing some of the recent air-filtering technologies, Morgan saw his hood as a lifesaver for workers like firefighters and miners. In 1916, an explosion during the building of a tunnel in Lake Erie left workers trapped and suffocating. So Morgan put on his safety hood and saved as many as he could. His mask has also been credited as the prototype for the gas masks created by the Army during the First World War. 

Soldier protection changed forever.

In 2007, the romantic comedy movie “Knocked Up” opened with a montage — set to Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” as the score — of four friends, all goofy slackers who are always stoned. Seth Rogen’s character, aptly named Ben Stone, at one point is getting high through a gas mask with a bong attached to the inhalation valve. After taking a big hit, the gas mask filling with marijuana smoke, Stone channels his best Darth Vader impersonation and drops the line, “I am your stoner.”

Bong paraphernalia changed forever.

In 2016, minutes before the NFL Draft was set to begin, a video surfaced on the Twitter account of Ole Miss offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil. In it, he’s wearing a gas mask bong, taking one of the trademark huge, potent hits and sitting for about 10 seconds in the smoke, he lifts the mask up for relief, revealing his face. Immediately, his draft stock plummeted. Universally regarded as one of the three to five best players in the draft, Tunsil was expected to be taken No. 3 to San Diego, or at least at No. 6 by Baltimore. Miami had him listed as the second-best player in the draft. But a hacker, Tunsil says, posted the gas mask bong video to sabotage him.

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The Miami Dolphins changed forever.

For that matter, so will the 49ers. And quite possibly the Eagles. Houston also benefited. The impact of the Dolphins’ draft-day coup is still reverberating in the NFL. Tunsil fell all the way to No. 13. Sports’ aversion to marijuana back then had some teams catching a sudden case of Tunsilitis. 

But because of their due diligence, and their stomach for risk, the dividends are still coming in five years later for Miami.

The Dolphins' Laremy Tunsil chain

“We had heard rumors, but we had done work,” Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said after the 2016 draft. “We had known about it. The video is two years old … we know the story behind it and we’re comfortable with what it is.”

Miami getting him was a boon. If Tunsil went where he was initially projected, he’s likely to be entrenched with that team and that’s it. 

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers needed his blindside protected as King Dunlap was aging and on his last legs. He was done with football after 2016. The Baltimore Ravens needed a tackle, too. Left tackle Eugene Monroe’s body was breaking down. He missed 10 games in 2015. In March of 2016, he became the first active NFL player to advocate for use of cannabinoids to treat pain. By July, he retired, no longer willing to put his body through the torture, and became an advocate for cannabis. The Ravens selected Ronnie Stanley instead of Tunsil — GM Ozzie Newsome said after the draft they had Stanley rated higher — and he’s still there, named an All-Pro in 2019.

But Miami used Tunsil, also a budding All-Pro, to rebuild its coffers. In 2019, the Dolphins traded Tunsil and two low-round picks to Houston for a 2020 first-round pick (No. 26), a first-round pick (No. 3) this year and a second-round pick (No. 36) this year.

The Dolphins turned the No. 26 selection last year into two picks — corner Noah Igbinoghene, who had a pretty rough rookie year but still has potential, and guard Solomon Kindley, who started 13 games as a rookie — via trade.

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The 2021 pick they got from Houston, though, was the big prize, as it turned out to be No. 3 overall. With Tua Tagovailoa already in town and no urgency to get a quarterback this time, the Dolphins flipped that to the 49ers for No. 12 this year, their first-round pick in 2022 and 2023, and a third-round pick in 2022. They then traded with the Eagles to flip the No. 12 into the No. 6 pick, where they could potentially get their hands on a generational talent such as Florida tight end Kyle Pitts or Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith. And they STILL have two future first-round picks to maneuver with from the Tunsil trade.

After the trades in March, Tunsil posted a photo on Instagram declaring himself a Dolphins legend. He superimposed himself over the top half of Dan Marino’s statue outside of Hard Rock Stadium and listed on the stone the bounty of picks he delivered to Miami.

#Dolphins great Laremy Tunsil chimes in on the blockbuster trades he produced for Miami 😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/oStlxcd8Gx

— Safid Deen 💯💯💯💯 (@Safid_Deen) March 27, 2021

All because of a gas mask bong. 

“This demonization actually should’ve never been the case in the first place,” said Alphonso “Tucky” Blunt, owner of Blunts + Moore marijuana dispensary in Oakland, whose client list includes numerous athletes. “But years and years of programming, war on drugs, etc., made it that way.”

No one still knows what happened. Tunsil said he was hacked. A report later said it was his financial advisor. Many suspected his stepfather, who became estranged from his mom.

NFL fans, including Dolphins faithful, are now photoshopping the mug of players they want to fall to their team onto screenshots from the Tunsil video, hoping for their team to strike gold from the NFL’s pearl-clutching. 

Both Tunsil and Houston struck gold. He has become a two-time Pro Bowler for the Texans, who gave him a three-year, $66 million deal last year. The Texans are now set at left tackle, a critical position. With Tunsil protecting Deshaun Watson, Houston even made the playoffs in 2019, so the cost of the trade with Miami decreased as the 2020 pick wound up a late-round selection.

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The 49ers will get their quarterback of the future Thursday because the Dolphins had Tunsil fall to them five years ago. If prognosticators are right, Alabama QB Mac Jones is about to get drafted onto what is expected to be a contender, all because the Dolphins had a No. 3 pick to sell.

The Eagles are still in range to get a top prospect at a key position at No. 12, and they scored one of the Dolphins’ 2022 first-round picks in the trade too.

But with all the wins associated with Tunsil’s fall, some real losses exist. The top two players in the 2016 draft were long known to be quarterbacks Jared Goff and Carson Wentz. But if Tunsil was selected No. 3, his rookie scale contract would’ve been four years, $25.87 million. If he’d gone No. 6, that contract was slotted at $20.6 million. At 13, he signed for $12.5 million. That’s more than $13 million in potential income lost by Tunsil. 

If you’re thinking, “That’s why you don’t let someone video it” — you’re right. No Seth Rogen experiment is worth losing that kind of dough. Plus, the gas mask bong is more novelty than anything. The first wave of THC that rushes into your lungs definitely hits harder, according to High Times magazine’s review of gas mask bongs. But after that, you’re inhaling a lot of the smoke you exhaled. And having your face trapped in such a small hot box tends to burn your eyes. Gas mask bongs are sold in headshops everywhere now, but they’re more collector’s items for weed heads and not ideal for elongated sessions or maximum chilling.

Five years ago, seeing the gas mask bong on Tunsil came off as if he was some kind of smoking champion. Outside of 420 culture, which basically all NFL executives are, it looked as if Tunsil had graduated to some new level of weed-headedness. That brought into play all of the stereotypes associated with marijuana usage.

Numerous studies in research support the possibility of marijuana having negative impacts. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institutes of Health even lists some long-term effects — from hindrances to brain development to breathing problems to increased heart rate to mental health issues. Many still deem it a gateway drug to harder substances, such as opioids. 

But perhaps just as many studies, even more, point to the relative harmlessness of marijuana. And current and former NFL players have dived in headfirst as the national embrace of cannabis has increased.

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Marshawn Lynch has launched Dodi Blunts in Oakland. Rob Gronkowski is endorsing CBDMedic, focused on pain relief. Calvin Johnson and Rob Sims, former Detroit Lions teammates, teamed up to start Primitiv, a cannabis research company, and worked with Harvard. Ricky Williams created his own line of products at RW/Wellness. Terrell Davis, Brett Favre and Joe Montana are all involved in the cannabis industry. The relationship between The Shield and the sticky icky has grown.

“There are plenty of people in these leagues who are what they call functional weed heads,” Tucky Blunt said. “Recreational users who are still getting their job done and doing what they need to do. Still managing multimillion-dollar business and making moves. They just can’t go public about it, or hide behind CBD to cover it up, because it’s still taboo. So there is still work to do because that comes with the territory. But how far we’ve come in the nine years since it was first legalized in Colorado has been good. And that’s because guys like Ricky Williams, like (former NBA player) Al Harrington, like Mike Tyson have sped up the process of changing the stigma.

The conclusion that is being unofficially reached from the opposing factions is simply using marijuana doesn’t guarantee the negative effects. Some can and do struggle to function with heavy marijuana use. But it can’t be determined from a video posted two minutes before the draft.

Five years later, the NFL has relaxed its rules on marijuana use, doing away with suspensions for positive tests, and it now seems relatively crazy to pass up on one of the league’s top talents because he uses. But Miami had the foresight back in 2016 to investigate the man and not the imagery that surfaced minutes before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell kicked it off. So they knew he worked his tail off. They knew he loved the game. They knew how much he loved his mother. So they took him.

And the storied history of the gas mask had a new legend.

(Top photo: Jon Durr / Getty Images)

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