A salute to Nelson Agholor

I take back every bad thing I've ever said about Nelson Agholor.

And I can assure you, like most Eagles fans, I've said plenty.

Especially in the last two weeks.

Agholor is the Eagles' wide receiver with an unfortunate penchant for dropping passes. It's dogged him throughout his career, ever since the Eagles made him a top pick out of USC.

Last week, Agholor, forced into a lead role when injuries took DeSean Jackson and Alshon Jeffery to the sidelines, came up small vs. the Falcons. He dropped a sure touchdown pass that went right through his hands as he streaked down the sideline.

This week his travails continued; a fumble led to points in a devastating loss to the Lions at the Linc.

But it was not until late Sunday night that Agholor's plight took on a whole new light.

When fire broke out at an apartment building at 52nd and Girard, Hakim Laws just happened to be in the right spot at the right time.

He and his friends jumped into action, with one of them rushing into the burning building, literally tossing children into the hands of Laws, who was waiting on the street below.

"My man just started throwing babies out ... And we was catching them," Laws told a TV news crew.

But then the Eagles fan, clearly still perturbed just a few hours after another brutal loss, could not resist adding a little relish.

"Unlike Agholor," he said, clearly a dig at the Birds' receiver.

Of course the video immediately went viral.

Agholor must have seen it. He went on Twitter to respond.

A lot of pro athletes today would have gotten their back up, and gone on Twitter to return fire to this disgruntled fan.

Agholor took another tack.

"Thank you for being a hero in the community," Agholor posted on Twitter. "Would like to invite you and your family to the next home game."

It doesn't get any better than that.

The fact is we all drop passes every day ... in our jobs, and in our lives. Most of us don't do it on national TV or in front of 70,000 screaming fans.

I've never been a big Nelson Agholor fan.

That changed with one Tweet. Not for anything he did on the field. The truth is, in the grand scheme of things, that's not that important. In today's social media-fueled cauldron, this incident easily could have turned ugly.

That it didn't tells you a lot about what kind of person Nelson Agholor is. And probably someone we all could emulate a bit in our own daily social media interactions. Well done, sir.

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