CINCINNATI -- Chad Ochocinco was insulted when the Bengals' newest receiver didn't respond to his congratulatory tweet on draft day.
Turns out there wasn't a reason to be upset. The Twitter account set up under Jordan Shipley's name wasn't his.
The Texas receiver was drafted by the Bengals in the third round last week, prompting Ochocinco to send congratulations to what appeared to be Shipley's Twitter account. It used Shipley's name and featured longhorn cattle as the background.
The problem: Shipley doesn't use Twitter.
"Somebody had a fake Twitter account," Shipley said Friday, after his first minicamp practice with the Bengals. "It's not me. That is the dangerous thing nowadays because people can get on those deals and make up fake accounts and act like they're you and get you in trouble."
In this case, it resulted in a terse exchange.
Ochocinco was in Cincinnati with "Dancing With the Stars" partner Sheryl Burke last week. He saw that Shipley had become a teammate and tweeted the "jordan-shipley" page, promising to take him to a favorite fast-food restaurant and a jewelry shop when they were both in town.
Ochocinco has more than 860,000 followers on Twitter. When he didn't receive a response from what he believed was Shipley's account, he sent a terse tweet -- that all his followers could see -- telling Shipley he was really upset with him and "tweet me back now, draft is over, we are supposed to bond now." Eventually, someone from the Shipley page played along and tweeted back an apology, saying it was a busy night.
Shipley knew nothing about it.
"I got a phone call the other day from my agents asking if I had a Twitter account," he said. "I said no. And they said somebody had a fake one."
Shipley said his agents contacted Twitter to have the page removed. It had been taken down Friday.
"It is a little scary that people can get on there and say what they want to, and people don't know that it's not you," Shipley said. "They can make it look just like it was mine."
Shipley hasn't had the chance to sit down with Ochocinco, who is back in Los Angeles -- his Argentine tango received high-enough marks to keep him dancing for at least one more week. Shipley is friends with Bengals receiver Quan Cosby, another former Longhorn, and has heard a lot about Ochocinco.
"I'm looking forward to meeting Chad and learning from him," Shipley said.
The Bengals drafted three players who can catch the ball and potentially take some pressure off Ochocinco, who routinely saw double and triple coverage last season. They took tight end Jermaine Gresham from Oklahoma in the first round and wide receiver Dezmon Briscoe from Kansas in the sixth.
"That was the first time I noticed him," Briscoe said Friday, during a break at rookie minicamp. "I just saw it in the media and I liked the confidence he had going into the game, and they went out and proved it."
Briscoe watched one of the early "Dancing With the Stars" episodes to keep up on Ochocinco's offseason exploits. He was a little surprised by the receiver's performance.
"I thought he was a little stiffer than when he was on the field," Briscoe said. "I thought he was a little stiff in the hips on 'Dancing With the Stars.' I think it was nervousness."
Ochocinco has received better marks as the series has progressed.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press
