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DJ Bien-Aime, ESPN
HOUSTON — It was 7:47 on the night of the 2016 NFL draft when Laremy Tunsil‘s phone began to buzz. He glanced at it but ignored the notifications, thinking it was fans blowing him up before the draft.
The left tackle out of Ole Miss turned his focus back to his family and the moment of a lifetime in the green room at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.
“I just picked my phone up to see what time it was,” Tunsil told ESPN. “It was comments from everybody. So when I saw it, I just put it down.”
The comments were about the draft — but about something that would make him the focus of the night for all the wrong reasons.
Unbeknownst to Tunsil, his Twitter account had been hacked. His agent at the time, Jimmy Sexton, soon notified Tunsil’s draft party in the green room. Initially, Tunsil tried to shrug it off, not knowing what exactly had leaked on the internet. Seconds later, he realized a video had surfaced of him wearing a black gas mask and smoking marijuana before raising the mask off his head and laughing.
A night that was supposed to be the beginning of an NFL career he had spent his life dreaming of quickly became a nightmare. Tunsil’s instinct was to delete the video.
“I was panicking a little bit, and I’m just like ‘Don’t let my mom and my auntie see this,'” Tunsil said. “How can we get this cleaned up and remove this as fast as possible?”
But the damage was done.
He couldn’t sign into his account because the password had been changed. By the time he was able to access his account and delete the post, the draft had started.
“We knew it was going to affect him,” ESPN senior draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. said. “But we were all wondering how far it would push him down the board. The Ravens could have been a landing spot at No. 6, but they took [left tackle] Ronnie Stanley. When Baltimore passed, I remember thinking, ‘OK, now we could see a slide.’ Other teams in the top 10 had bigger needs.”
The video of Tunsil made the rounds on social media and TV throughout draft night, and a projected top-10 pick fell to the Miami Dolphins at No. 13. The fall from No. 6 cost Tunsil roughly $8 million after the Baltimore Ravens passed on him for Stanley, who signed a four-year $20.48 million rookie contract, while Tunsil signed a four-year, $12.46 million deal in Miami.
Tunsil carried the burden of draft night until he signed a three-year, $66 million contract extension in 2020 with the Houston Texans, a year after the Dolphins acquired multiple first-round draft picks for him in a trade. In Houston, Tunsil has gone on to four Pro Bowls, become the highest-paid left tackle in the league twice and been the protector of quarterback C.J. Stroud‘s blind side. As the Texans (9-5) travel to play the Kansas City Chiefs (13-1) on Saturday (1 p.m. ET, NBC), Houston will count on Tunsil to anchor the offensive line against the reigning two-time Super Bowl champions.
Years later, the shame of that night has subsided, and he says it’s easier to talk about now. Tunsil said he uses the humiliation of draft night as fuel toward his goals of being named All-Pro and, eventually, making it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“To this day, I still have that chip on my shoulder just to prove everybody wrong. … It just showed everyone I do make mistakes, but that’s not who I am,” Tunsil told ESPN. “So that was just one part of the journey. But I want the gold jacket. I want to be known as one of the best ever.”
TUNSIL WAS VIEWED as a potential No. 1 selection at points during the 2016 NFL draft cycle. Before the Tennessee Titans traded the No. 1 pick to the Los Angeles Rams, Kiper had Tunsil going to Tennessee in his 2016 NFL Mock Draft 2.0 in February.
“I had Tunsil first overall on my final Big Board,” Kiper said of the draft day post, “and not many people had him lower than third.”
During the draft cycle, Tunsil said he visited the Ravens, Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars and Titans.
Back in the green room at the draft, the phone of Tunsil’s brother and teammate at Ole Miss Alex Weber was also buzzing. Weber said he thought it was because “people were just seeing me on TV.” As soon as Weber saw the video, he and Tunsil went to the bathroom to regroup.
“We were looking at each other, like ‘What the hell,'” Weber told ESPN. “It felt like a movie scene. [Tunsil] just started to sweat. This is a pivotal point, not only for him but for the family too. We were trying to cool off and remain composed.”
According to Tunsil, Baltimore had told him it would select him with the No. 6 pick if he was available. The Ravens went with Stanley.
The Saturday after the draft, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Baltimore would have taken Tunsil if not for the video.
A team source who was a part of the Ravens’ draft room in 2016 said they didn’t think Tunsil would have even made it to them without the video leaking.
“The video definitely played a role in the discussion,” the former Ravens league source told ESPN. “In a process as lengthy and complex as this, with so many layers involved, we only had a few minutes to reach a decision as an organization.”
Baltimore believed that Tunsil was a top-five pick and that Jacksonville could have taken him. A former Jaguars coach who was a part of that draft process told ESPN they were always taking cornerback Jalen Ramsey, though.
The San Francisco 49ers had the No. 7 pick, and Tunsil said Chip Kelly, the 49ers’ coach at the time, called him but ultimately decided to draft defensive tackle DeForest Buckner.
“[Tunsil] was in contention,” a 49ers team source told ESPN. “We thought he was a consensus top-five, so when that happened we were like, ‘Oh s—, do we want to consider?’ We didn’t do a ton of work predraft because we never really thought he would fall to pick No. 7, and Baltimore was in front of us and needed a tackle. So when the video dropped, and he was available, we didn’t feel like we knew him well enough to override Buckner’s basically perfect background.”
The Titans had the No. 8 pick, and a team source said the video had little impact on their decision as they selected tackle Jack Conklin over Tunsil.
Once the Titans passed, Tunsil feared he could drop out of the first round completely.
“Once I saw Baltimore and Tennessee, the two teams I know that wanted me, passed on me, it didn’t feel good,” Tunsil told ESPN. “I really thought I was dropping to the second and third round.”
Once Miami was on the clock, its college scout at the time, Matt Winston, had done plenty of predraft homework on Tunsil and vouched for his character, according to ESPN’s Mike Tannenbaum, who was the Dolphins’ executive vice president of football operations from 2015 to 2018.
The Dolphins were targeting defensive linemen and cornerbacks, according to Tannenbaum. But Tunsil was the No. 2 player on their board.
“We had a gazillion needs on the team, and ironically tackle wasn’t one of them,” Tannenbaum told ESPN. “The question was, if we got him, would we slide him inside to guard for a year? We determined that he was a really good person. He made a mistake. We were prepared and had really good information on him, and we were able to take advantage of that opportunity.”
But Tunsil couldn’t fully enjoy the moment once he was selected. The family originally had plans to celebrate but ended up spending the rest of the night in a somber hotel room. Looking back, Tunsil has one major regret.
“Honestly wish I never got interviewed,” Tunsil recalled about that night. “I did it to just clear my name up a little bit. I think that’s the worst thing I did. It made things worse.”
Whenever Tunsil was teased about his draft night after the fact, it bothered him.
“My first three years, it was heavy on my heart. Like, damn, I can’t believe I went through that,” Tunsil said. “I used to have teammates make fun of me and that’d bother me even though I would laugh. I was always dealing with fans in the stands with gas masks.”
Laremy Tunsil announced his infamous draft day “Gas Mask Video” is being made into an NFT, with a portion of the money benefiting cannabis criminal justice reform: https://t.co/Ay1DEf6MmP pic.twitter.com/wEA9796TYg
— ESPN (@espn) April 27, 2022
Almost a decade later, Tunsil has $121.1 million in career earnings, the sixth most from his draft class. The day before the 2022 NFL draft began, he minted the picture of him smoking out of the gas mask into a non-fungible token (NFT). He used portions of the proceeds from the NFT to aid the Last Prisoner Project — which supports people incarcerated for cannabis offenses.
“It just showed everyone I do make mistakes, but that’s not who I am,” Tunsil said. “So that was just one part of the journey. I don’t really just look at it crazy. It’s always going to be attached to me. When my son gets a little older, I got to tell him what happened. But it didn’t slow me down.”
TUNSIL STARTED OFF at left guard as a rookie with the Dolphins. He helped pave rushing lanes for running back Jay Ajayi, whose 1,272 rushing yards was the fourth most that season. The Dolphins went 10-6 and clinched a wild-card spot in the playoffs before losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Tunsil transitioned to left tackle for the 2017 and 2018 seasons in Miami and was 10th among left tackles in pass block win rate with at least 1,000 pass block snaps (87.8%) in that span.
The Texans were left with a void at the position after trading Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown before the trade deadline to the Seattle Seahawks.
Quarterback Deshaun Watson was sacked 62 times the next season, so Houston was in search of options and eventually sprang for Tunsil.
After arriving in Houston, Tunsil let his blocking speak for him. Since 2019, he has the fifth-best pass block win rate among left tackles with at least 3,000 pass block snaps (91).
When the Texans rewarded Tunsil with a three-year, $75 million contract extension in March 2023, they didn’t have a quarterback in place yet. But they knew whoever they drafted with the No. 2 pick would need an elite left tackle to nurture a young quarterback’s development.
The Texans selected Stroud, who has led Houston to back-to-back AFC South division titles. The second-year quarterback praises Tunsil for protecting him — Tunsil has allowed only two sacks in 2024.
“He has been huge,” Stroud said. “He has not only been doing a great job blindside protecting but just a great brother to lean on that has seen a lot, been through a lot. [He’s] somebody who I lean on.”
Outside of aspiring for team success — helping to bring the first Super Bowl trophy to the Texans franchise — Tunsil hopes his legacy can reach the Hall of Fame.
“I want the gold jacket,” Tunsil said. “I want to be known as one of the best ever. I just want something to show for it once I’m done. I would love to have a statue in Canton, Ohio.”
An All-Pro selection would help bolster his Hall of Fame case, and Tunsil hopes the Chiefs game will give voters a chance to see his blocking prowess against a defense that ranks 14th against the pass (215 yards allowed per game). He has the third-lowest sack percentage (0.5) among left tackles with at least 450 pass block snaps, and has allowed the ninth-fewest pressures (46), according to Next Gen Stats.
Against the best pass rushers, he has answered the call. He has allowed six pressures and one sack in 59 matchups against a pass-rushing group of Josh Allen-Hines, Micah Parsons, Jonathan Greenard, Travon Walker and Haason Reddick, who have all had at least one double-digit sack season since 2022, according to Next Gen Stats.
“I’m one of the best tackles in the game,” Tunsil told ESPN. “And every time I get done playing an opponent, they tell me that. It’s time for people to notice that; it’s time for me to get my kudos. … I’m getting it from peers, but I need to get it from [All-Pro voters]. I need my flowers and my respect.”